Amari Cooper Traded to Bills, Fantasy Reaction

The NFL trade deadline is still three weeks away, but don’t tell the teams that, with two whopper wide receiver trades within a few hours Tuesday. First was the Raiders/Jets deal involving Davante Adams, and then in the afternoon we got news that the Browns were dealing Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills. The Bills are sending a third-round pick to the Browns and the teams are swapping later picks, per Ian Rapoport.

Cooper had back-to-back seasons of 1,100-plus yards in his first two years with Cleveland in 2022-2023, but he’s off to a miserable start in 2024, with only 250 yards through six games, a pace of 708.3 yards over 17 games. He’s only caught 45.3% of his targets, comfortably a career low, but nearly half of his targets thus far have been off target, with Browns QB Deshaun Watson struggling to put together a competent offense.

Now, he heads to a Buffalo team that badly needs a new WR1, and Cooper will take over that role. Josh Allen is worlds better as a quarterback than Watson, so even with Cooper’s meager numbers so far this season, he has a shot at rising back to his former stardom as a Bill. He immediately slots in as a WR2-plus with Allen and the Bills, likely resurrecting some fantasy teams that were floundering with Cooper’s struggles.

Cooper’s arrival renders most of the Bills’ other receivers even more fantasy-unusable than they already were. Curtis Samuel and Keon Coleman were barely rosterable even before this, but now they should definitely be waiver bait. Khalil Shakir can still be rostered, but he’s definitely not a starter, and there’s a chance he loses even more value. Dalton Kincaid is still a worthwhile tight end, but that’s more of a testament to the weakness of the position around the league than a claim to Kincaid dominating going forward.

Back in Cleveland … well, there weren’t any fantasy pieces you really cared about before this, and there still aren’t. David Njoku remains a fantasy starter at tight end, but again, it’s tight end. Nick Chubb will be very interesting to monitor upon his return to action. But there’s not a receiver here that gets any kind of bump that pushes him into fantasy relevance. Maybe Jerry Jeudy goes from “don’t bother” to “if you’re desperate,” but that’s about it. Cleveland is close to a black hole as fantasy value goes, and that’s only getting worse.