Browns Digest

Cleveland Browns Send Bold Message With Amari Cooper Trade

The Browns shipped their top wideout to the Buffalo Bills along with a seventh round pick on Tuesday afternoon

Spencer German

Sep 8, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Browns wide receiver Amari Cooper (2) runs with the ball after a catch as Dallas Cowboys cornerback Caelen Carson (21) defends during the first quarter at Huntington Bank Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
Sep 8, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Browns wide receiver Amari Cooper (2) runs with the ball after a catch as Dallas Cowboys cornerback Caelen Carson (21) defends during the first quarter at Huntington Bank Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images / Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
In this story:

For all intents and purposes the Cleveland Browns are onto 2025.

That's what Tuesday's stunning trade that sent top wideout Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills represents. The parameters of the trade are telling enough. Along with Cooper Cleveland sent a 2026 sixth round pick, to get back a 2025 third rounder and a 2026 seventh rounder. There are still three weeks to go until the NFL's trade deadline and the Browns are already in stockpile picks mode.

Sure, Cooper had been miserable for the Browns through the first six weeks of the season. He leads the league in drops with nine and contributed to an offense that far too often is stalling out short of points. As a whole, the group is statistically the worst offense in the NFL and the biggest reason why Cleveland is 1-5 on the season.

Cooper was a contributor to that, yes, but he's still the best receiver the team had. So what led to this point, besides the drops? The relationship between the team and Cooper first became icy this offseason. As the 30-year-old wideout sought a contract extension, the Browns didn't want to give big money or big years to a wideout rounding into his 30s. Once he skipped veteran minicamp in June the tension between the two sides became obvious.

Ultimately, the Browns did what they needed to get Cooper to show up to training camp by restructuring the final year of his current deal to guarantee him the full $20 million value for 2024 and add $5 million in incentives. It was enough to smooth things over for the time being, until Cooper's name popped up in trade rumors for 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk during camp.

Those discussions left the 2015 first-round pick posting cryptic messages on social media. Those discussions fell through at the time, with Aiyuk ultimately staying put. 10 weeks later, the rumors became a reality for Cooper, going to Buffalo instead of San Francisco and Cleveland settling for picks instead of a young, potential star wide receiver in return.

Considering how inept the offense has been and how quickly this season has seemed to spiral out of control already for Cleveland, it's not totally surprising to see Cooper traded. The timing, however, was the more stunning part.

Despite the fact that the team has just one win in six weeks, players have expressed optimism that there is still time to right the ship with all six division games and 10 AFC matchups remaining. Executive vice president of player personnel Andrew Berry had to recognize how trading Cooper would play with the rest of the team.

Changes on offense are certainly needed, with debates over whether or not head coach Kevin Stefanski should pivot to Jameis Winston at quarterback over Deshaun Watson starting up in recent weeks. Stefanski has been adamant that Watson gives Cleveland the best chance to win. Taking away some of the talent around him isn't a move to help those efforts though.

Moving Cooper now is a theoretical waving of the white flag. It's a concession that the rest of the 2024 campaign is about figuring out what the Browns have in Watson at quarterback. Finding out if Jerry Jeudy, Elijah Moore and Cedric Tillman can headline their wide receiver room moving forward, or if they'll be looking to finally hit on a wide receivers in next year's draft. On a larger scale it's about finding out who will be part of the team's core moving forward and who can be moved for more picks.

And that's what this is really about. For the first time in four years the Browns have a first round draft pick. They're main is on how many more picks they can accumulate to in the process. And if pick acquisition is the goal, the Cooper trade is just the beginning.

Published
Spencer German
SPENCER GERMAN

Spencer German is a contributor to the Northeast Ohio cluster of sites, including Cavs Insider, Cleveland Baseball Insider and most notably Browns Digest. He also works as a fill-in host on Cleveland Sports Radio, 92.3 The Fan, one of the Browns radio affiliate stations in Cleveland. Despite being a Cleveland transplant, Spencer has enjoyed making Northeast Ohio home ever since he attended college locally at John Carroll University, where he graduated in 2013.

Home/Browns Opinion