Announcement: Cleveland Brown WR Amari Cooper Signed Out Today…
If all goes as planned, Browns fans will be able to chant “Coop! Coop!” at Cleveland Browns Stadium for the foreseeable future.
At the NFL annual meetings here, general Andrew Berry spoke in glowing terms about Cooper, their five-time Pro Bowler, and indicated he could extend him this offseason as he heads into he final year of his contract.
Look, Coop’s a Pro Bowl caliber receiver,” Berry said. “He’s played really well for us the past two years. He’s a strong presence in the locker room. We love him. So players like that, you want to make sure that you can retain as long as possible and we’ll work through all of that at the appropriate times.
The Browns might not extend Cooper before the NFL draft April 25-27, but they’ll likely turn their attention to it sometime thereafter.
The Browns have already extended Cooper’s mentee Jerry Jeudy, whom they acquired two weeks ago in a trade with the Broncos for fifth- and sixth-round picks in this year’s draft.
In addition to Jeudy’s fully guaranteed option-year salary of $12.987 million for 2024, they extended him three more years through 2027 at $52.5 million, including $28 million guaranteed and a chance to make $5.5 million more in incentives.
But the Browns are viewing it more as a four-year deal worth $65 million, including $41 million total guaranteed, which represents excellent value at $16.25 million a year for a potential 1,000-yard receiver.
With other first-round wideouts in Jeudy’s stellar 2020 class such as Dallas’ CeeDee Lamb (No. 17 overall) and Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson (No. 22) set to sign extensions this offseason worth more than $30 million, Jeudy (No. 15) will earn just over half of that while he tries to reach his first-round potential with Deshaun Watson.
“In Jerry’s case, you already saw two new receiver contracts enter the market (Indy’s Michael Pittman at $23.3 million a year and the Patriots Calvin Ridley at $23 million) that really are harbingers of things to come in that market,” Berry said.
“Probably by Week 1 of the NFL season, the top of that market’s going to be north of $30 million. So as we think of the contract management space, rather than be reactive to new market dynamics, we try to be proactive. Probably more importantly, when we think about an extension or a signing, we think of where is the market going to be on September 1 as opposed to March 1.”
That’s another reason the Browns might want to extend Cooper sooner than later. Heading into this season, he’s due to make $20 million, with a cap charge of $23.77 million. With prices about to skyrocket, the Browns might be able wrap up Cooper for less than the new going rate of $30 million-plus.