Here’s what Amari Cooper must do to justify the investment
By Richard Ball
The Dallas Cowboys traded away another first round pick. We crunched the numbers and this is what Amari Cooper must do to justify the investment.
The draft capital spent for the fourth-year wide receiver would show that the Dallas Cowboys believe Amari Cooper is capable of being a lead receiver. While it is presumptuous to expect Cooper to deliver on this expectation, it is fun to speculate on what he will need to do to prove the Cowboys front office belief that he will be a positive addition to the team.
For Cooper to be worth the investment, he will need to deliver both intangible and tangible value. By definition, intangible value will be hard to quantify but it likely means that Cooper will need to draw coverage his way from time to time to allow quarterback Dak Prescott to exploit one on one match-ups with his other wide receivers.
This post will focus on the tangible aspects. While America’s Team fans will expect immediate results, it will be unfair for Cooper to learn the playbook and develop a strong rapport with Prescott in a short amount of time and deliver production in the remaining nine regular season games.
So my focus will be on Cooper’s 2019 season where he will have a $13.9 million cap hit. To determine top wide receiver production, I averaged the top fifteen wide receivers with more than four years experience from the 2017 season. The four years experience requirement was necessary to find a like for like cap hit for wide receivers on their second contract.
As you would expect, the list of top fifteen wide receivers includes names like Antonio Brown, Julio Jones and DeAndre Hopkins. It also includes Golden Tate, Doug Baldwin, T.Y. Hilton and Demaryius Thomas. This group of wide receivers averages 27.8 years old and has seven years NFL experience.
By averaging the top fifteen wide receivers, I am comparing the seventh or eighth top season to figure if Amari’s 2019 production will be worthy. The 2017 group of wide receivers averaged 79 catches for 1,097 yards with 6.3 touchdowns at a cap hit of $10.2 million.
In order to meet my defined top wide receiver standard, Cooper will need to exceed 97 catches for 1,342 yards and eight touchdowns as his adjusted 2019 to 2017 cap hit is $12.5 million.
Next. 5 reasons the Amari Cooper trade was a mistake. dark
A move like this is bound to bring strong emotions with instant analysis. Time will tell if the Dallas Cowboys used their 2019 first round draft pick wisely.