Does the Amari Cooper Trade Make the Bills a Title Contender?

Though they opted to head into the season without veteran playmakers in the receiver room, the Buffalo Bills decided to change that ahead of Week 7.  

According to reports, the Bills have acquired WR Amari Cooper, who has seven 1,000-yard seasons, from the Cleveland Browns in a deal that also included draft picks. It followed another big receiver trade hours earlier when the New York Jets got Aaron Rodgers his old teammate, Davante Adams, from the Las Vegas Raiders.

The Bills hope to be gearing up for another playoff appearance after a 23-20 win over the Jets on Monday night put them at 4-2 and atop the AFC East standings.

Like most of Cleveland’s wideouts, Cooper was seemingly never able to develop much chemistry with Deshaun Watson. He put up four 100-yard games with Jacoby Brissett under center in 2022, but only one over the final six games with Watson back from suspension.

Last season, Cooper finished on a heater with Joe Flacco calling the shots down the stretch. He racked up 22 receptions on a ridiculous 37 targets for 451 yards and three touchdowns in his last three games (he missed the final two with a heel injury). That included an 11-catch, 265-yard effort in Week 16 that was the most yards receiving in a game in Browns history.

However, with Watson back at the helm, Cooper has yet to surpass that Week 16 total through six games of 2024. He has 24 receptions for 250 yards and two TDs as he moves into the No. 1 receiver role for quarterback Josh Allen in Buffalo.

Watson ranks last in the NFL in well-thrown percentage (74.0) among those with at least 60 adjusted attempts (no throwaway or spikes) despite averaging just 7.43 air yards per attempt (NFL average is 7.83).

But can Watson’s performance be solely to blame for Cooper’s lackluster numbers?

Using burn rate and open percentage, we can evaluate wide receivers by removing the passer – in this case, Watson – from the equation as much as possible.

A burn occurs when the targeted receiver does his part to achieve a successful play (that is, a significant gain towards a first down or touchdown), regardless of the quality of the throw by the quarterback. He doesn’t even have to catch a pass to be credited with a burn.

Open percentage, on the other hand, is simply how often a receiver is open when he is targeted. The metric has an indirect correlation with average target depth – that is, how far downfield a receiver is targeted.

So what do we find when we look at these two metrics?

After finishing with a 65.6 burn percentage with an average depth of target of 14.2 yards – both well above the league average (59.3% and 10.9 yards), Cooper has a 56.6 burn percentage that’s below the league average of 57.1% with an average depth of target of 12.5 in 2024.

The ex-Cowboys WR’s open percentage has also fallen from 64.9% in 2023 to just 60.4% this season. Again, that’s well below the league average of 71.1%. On a scale of 0-1, catch rating indicates how well a receiver successfully catches throws that are considered catchable. Cooper has plummeted there too, going from .938 last season to .774 so far in 2024.

Opposing defenses will likely give Cooper the same amount of attention in Buffalo, where tight end Dalton Kincaid leads the team in receptions with 21, as they did when he was in Cleveland, where Jerry Jeudy (20 catches) now becomes the No. 1 receiver. But there’s little doubt that Cooper will now be teamed up with a much better quarterback.

Remember Watson’s 2024 ranks? Well, Josh Allen ranks fifth in the NFL with an 86.4 well-thrown percentage among qualified QBs while averaging 8.80 air yards per attempt – much higher than Watson’s 7.43.

Though he’s not elite in QB EVE, Allen is 12th in the league (35.5 total EVE) while only Denver Broncos rookie Bo Nix ranks below Watson (minus-328.4). EVE measures the average yards gained compared to the league-wide projected yards in the given situation.

Having gone from one of the NFL’s most feared offenses in recent years to middle of the pack (15th in offensive EVE) with Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis elsewhere, the AFC East-leading Bills hope the addition of Cooper can help push them toward returning to Super Bowl-contender status this season.

But the move isn’t likely to matter much unless the five-time Pro Bowler is able to get separation, start winning matchups and make some big catches.

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