World’s Best Preview: Amari Cooper trade shows potential of trade for A.J. Green

If healthy and available, here's why the Green Bay Packers should bite the bullet and rent A.J. Green for the rest of the season.

On Oct. 21, 2018, the Dallas Cowboys lost 20-17 to the Washington Redskins. By alternating losses and wins, the Cowboys were 3-4 heading into their bye. They were a woeful 26th in the league in scoring with 20.0 points per game.

The next day, they sent a first-round pick to Oakland for receiver Amari Cooper.

“We were just so excited to get him,” Cowboys coach Jason Garrett recalled on Wednesday in a conference call. “We thought the world of him coming out of (Alabama), and he had a couple Pro Bowl years in Oakland. For whatever reason, we were going to have the opportunity to get him, and we embraced that chance, and we got him here.”

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The Cowboys lost their first game after the bye at home against Tennessee, despite a touchdown from Cooper, but went 7-1 during the second half of the season to surge into the playoffs with a 10-6 record. It wasn’t as if the Cowboys’ offense went from good to great – they scored 23.1 points per game during the second half of the season – but Cooper was an impact performer. In the nine regular-season games, he caught 53 passes for 725 yards and six touchdowns, then added 13 receptions for 171 yards and one touchdown in two playoff games. Take those 11 games and put them over a full 16-game season, and Cooper would have posted 96 catches for 1,303 yards and 10 touchdowns. Prescott’s passer rating without Cooper was 87.4; with him, it was 103.0.

“It was amazing how quickly he transitioned,” Garrett said. “Really, the first couple days, it was like he and Dak had been playing together for a long time. They’re very comfortable with each other. He’s a very smart guy and a very smart football guy and he picked things up, formations and movements and splits and what we’re asking him to do on different routes and different adjustments. He picked it up very quickly and was able to transition really that first week. Certainly as the year went on, he got better and better.”

This isn’t an Amari Cooper-Cowboy story, though, even though the Green Bay Packers will have to contend with Cooper on Sunday. Rather, it’s an A.J. Green-Packers story.

Maybe the Packers’ offense will explode even without Davante Adams on Sunday. If the offense sputters, with Aaron Rodgers lacking a consistent playmaker in a receiver corps that will feature the last pick of the fifth round in 2018 (Marquez Valdes-Scantling) and four players who went undrafted (Geronimo Allison, Allen Lazard, Jake Kumerow and Darrius Shepherd), it should be time for general manager Brian Gutekunst to pick up his phone and dial his counterpart in Cincinnati, Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin.

There are a couple of unknowns. First, would the Bengals even trade Green? They’d be wise to at least listen. Green’s in his final season under contract and the Bengals are 0-4. Why not get a draft pick for a guy who will be a free agent at season’s end, anyway? Second, and probably most importantly, when will Green be ready to play? He suffered torn ligaments in his ankle early in training camp, an injury that required surgery and has kept him out of the lineup. He worked with Cincinnati’s rehab group on Thursday, a step in his comeback. ESPN.com's Adam Schefter recently said Green potentially could be ready by Week 7.

Let’s say Green is healthy and the Bengals figure they’re better off getting something rather than nothing for their seven-time Pro Bowl receiver. What would be the proper asking price? According to one team’s top decision-maker, who essentially nailed the terms of the Odell Beckham trade, a fair asking price would be a third-round pick.

Financially, it wouldn’t be cheap. If a trade were made on Monday, Green would cost the Packers $8.45 million – the prorated portion of Green’s $11.976 base salary – according to Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com. Push the trade off another week so Green’s a week closer to playing, and that figure would fall to $7.75 million.

Here’s what Gutekunst would have to determine. Would it be worth the money and a valuable midround draft pick for what might be a 10-game rental on a 31-year-old receiver?

There’s no doubt Green can play, according to a veteran NFL assistant coach who has watched Green regularly over the years. A first-round pick in 2011, Green has gone over 1,000 receiving yards in all but two seasons – 2016, when he had 964 yards in 10 games (missed six games with a hamstring injury), and 2018, when he had 694 yards in nine games (missed seven games with a toe injury). For his eight-year career, he’s averaged 5.4 receptions for 80.2 yards and 0.57 touchdowns. At 6-foot-4, he’s an imposing target, even if he no longer has 4.49 speed in the 40.

Green, a seven-time Pro Bowler, remains a “high-level player,” the coach said. With the Packers, he could turn a promising but inconsistent offense into an excellent offense. No longer would the Packers have to search for a reliable No. 2 target to Adams. Instead, they’d have Adams and Green providing an elite one-two punch while opening up things for Valdes-Scantling, Allison and tight end Jimmy Graham.

Moreover, he’s a good teammate, recalled Kumerow, who spent the 2015, 2016 and 2017 training camps with Cincinnati.

“He was huge,” Kumerow said. “A.J. meant a lot to me. Coming in as a rookie – I went to Illinois and learned a good amount, got to Whitewater and learned a good amount and then I got to the NFL and the Bengals have A.J. Green as their best receiver. I looked up to A.J. Green like he’s a God. I’m watching everything he does, I’m trying to mimic every move he makes. I tried to style my game after how he played. He helped out as much as I would ask him. A.J.’s kind of a quiet guy. He’s not a loud character or a vocal type of guy, but if ever had a question for him, I would ask and he’d be happy to answer. He was a good guy to follow. A.J.’s a good man.”

To be sure, a trade for Green is filled with unknowns, starting with Green’s health and the Bengals’ plans. But if Gutekunst truly believes this team can contend for a championship this season – yet another unknown – then it’s up to the GM to give the offense the weapon it needs to contend with the powerful defenses of the Bears, Saints and Cowboys in the NFC.