The Davante Adams trade made bigger headlines. The Amari Cooper trade could have a bigger impact.
In his first game with the Bills, only four days after showing up in Buffalo, Cooper had four catches for 66 yards and a touchdown.
How did Cooper get ready? He put in the work.
“I’m typically one of the last ones to leave,” quarterback Josh Allen told PFT by phone after the 34-10 win over the Titans. “I saw [Cooper’s] backpack in the locker room. I went room to room searching for him. I couldn’t find him, because he was up somewhere studying with [quality control coach] D.J. Mangas and [receivers] coach [Adam] Henry, every single day. So he spent extra time every day. He spent extra time this morning on the game field before the game, understanding his assignments and going and doing it. I didn’t do anything, that was all him and that speaks again to his character and his savviness and I’m again very happy that we’ve got him.”
It makes life easier for Allen to have Cooper on the field.
“They’ve got to respect him,” Allen said. “They’ve got to cloud over there and give that cornerback some help . . . And if they didn’t, we threw him the ball. So I guess pick your poison with that. It makes the quarterback position a lot easier.”
That’s a huge development. It’s easy to say Cooper is no longer a great player, because he was stuck on a crappy team. But Cooper had a career-high 1,250 receiving yards last year with a Browns offense that had a revolving door of quarterbacks. And Cooper has made an immediate impact with hardly any time to prepare.
If defenses do indeed play Cooper the way Allen explained it, and if it becomes a pick your poison situation, the Bills go from being a playoff contender to a Super Bowl contender.
