Thoughts on Amari Cooper?

[Cubanmist]

13 hours ago, BillMafia716ix said:

What are your thoughts on Amari Cooper so far?
 

Two targets this past Sunday vs the Patriots. Zero targets vs. the Lions. He’s had two decent games but he seems to be invisible most of the time. I know he’s due for a contract but I feel like we can replace his production with a WR in the draft. I would like him back but I wouldn’t overpay. 

Like Josh said, “trying not to show too much” of their playbook.

[T master]

8 hours ago, I'm Spartacus said:

Keep Cooper, get rid of Samuel.

 

What is Samuels contract about ?

 

[Doc]

21 minutes ago, T master said:

What is Samuels contract about ?

 

Almost $6M of his 2025 salary is guaranteed.  He's not going anywhere.

[Augie]

1 hour ago, Dr.Sack said:

I don’t read through these threads. Lots of hot takes. My thoughts are centered around winning. We’ve won with him at better clip than we’ve won without him. 

 

I get that, but there is some interesting stuff in here about why they’ve done better with him. Stuff that makes sense to me. 

[AlCowlingsTaxiService]

I think he’s been an important piece to free up other offensive weapons, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t impatiently waiting for an “Amari Game”,

9 catches/124 yards/2 TDs … something like that  

Edited 21 hours ago by AlCowlingsTaxiService

[Cubanmist]

13 hours ago, gjv said:

I hope we keep Cooper.

Me too, but we MUST add a young WR with speed, elusiveness, and vision.

[thenorthremembers]

If he wants to get paid like a #1 wideout in the league I cant see them bothering to bring him back.   Josh does so much of his work off schedule that paying Cooper, even as a top 20 wideout in the league isnt worth the Bills time.   That said, if the guy wants to come back here on a one year deal for between 3.5 and 5 Million great.  Otherwise go draft someone else.

[Thurman#1]

On 12/25/2024 at 4:34 PM, Mike in Horseheads said:

I'd look at a 3 year contract but probably not for what he's going to want

 

 

This, at least so far.

 

But it's fairly likely that he's having some kind of problem right now, probably physical.

 

We don't know the whole story yet. It'll be interesting finding out what is going on.

[Thurman#1]

7 hours ago, thenorthremembers said:

If he wants to get paid like a #1 wideout in the league I cant see them bothering to bring him back.   Josh does so much of his work off schedule that paying Cooper, even as a top 20 wideout in the league isnt worth the Bills time.   That said, if the guy wants to come back here on a one year deal for between 3.5 and 5 Million great.  Otherwise go draft someone else.

 

 

He won't be paid like a #1 wideout. Probably not even if he acts like one for the next six games.

 

He'll be 31 next season and he wasn't wildly productive this year with either team.

 

The question is whether we want to pay him like a top-level #2. That he'll probably get from someone.

 

He got $20M a year for his last contract. My guess is he won't get that again, but maybe closeish, $12 - $18, depending how productive he is during the playoffs. Yet another guess is that we wouldn't pay that unless the other terms were quite team-friendly, allowing an easy and relatively painless cut if things didn't work out that well.

 

This is all assuming - as I do - that he's still having health problems  that are limiting his effectiveness.

 

On 12/25/2024 at 4:48 PM, BillytheKid said:

If it wasn’t for Amari most of these other guys wouldn’t be getting open. He is the reason others get open easier so the offense can move and give Josh more options and easier options. Just because he hasn’t been getting as many targets doesn’t mean anything. 

 

 

Nah, not at all.

 

He's playing less than 50% of snaps and we're not noticeably less productive with him out there than we are when he's on the bench.

Edited 9 hours ago by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

20 hours ago, aristocrat said:

He draws other teams top corners. Might have had some light games but our offense looked unstoppable with him against Detroit. 

 

 

46% of the snaps against Detroit. We looked unstoppable with him and without him.

[Thurman#1]

14 hours ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

It feels weird saying this but the pats did a way better job holding up in coverage with Josh buying a ton of time for himself than the vast majority of teams weve seen 

 

 

Joe Marino pointed out that Josh went to his first read a very low percentage of the time, by far the lowest this season. It seemed like part of our problem is that Josh was thinking about the home run ball way too often again. When he said that, it sounded right to me. When he takes what they give very often, this offense is seriously dangerous.

[Thurman#1]

15 hours ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

Cooper will be a difference maker in the playoffs. This offense is on another level since he was added to the team.

Hollins is better than I thought he was going to be, but Cooper needs more plays.

Nothing wrong with getting Coleman some snaps now to work back in game shape. But come playoffs they need more Cooper and less Hollins/Samuel/Coleman.  

 

 

I mean, you can say that "the offense has been on another level since he was added to the team," as you did.

 

It's not dead wrong, but it's not right on, either. Amari's first game on the field was Week 7, and that was when the offense took off. But he was off the field completely for Weeks 9 and 10 and there was no letdown.

 

Looks to me far more about correlation than causation.

 

IMO a huge chunk of that improvement is what was to be expected from the beginning of the season, that it would take a bunch of time to see who did what well and who didn't, and to get used to playing together. Josh's WRs this year, other than Shakir, had never played with Josh before. Samuel had played with Brady before but none of the others had. This was always likely to take some time to figure out.

 

If Amari had been the reason for the offense getting better around mid-season, how come we weren't worse in Weeks 9 and 10 with him on the bench?

 

Causation here is really really questionable. Has he likely helped some? Absolutely. But there is very likely a host of other reasons that have resulted in the larger portions of that improvement.

 

 

13 hours ago, Dr.Sack said:

I don’t read through these threads. Lots of hot takes. My thoughts are centered around winning. We’ve won with him at better clip than we’ve won without him. 

 

 

Correlation, not causation.

 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

12 hours ago, Augie said:

 

I get that, but there is some interesting stuff in here about why they’ve done better with him. Stuff that makes sense to me. 

 

 

What, specifically?

 

I read your post and went back through and read every post, hoping to find something, and I didn't, really.

 

Yeah, we might be holding him back for the playoffs. Or not. That's wishful thinking. Could be true, but there's no logical reason to specifically think so. Yeah, the offense got better when he got here, but we were just as good with him on the bench as we were with him on the field. He's made seven or eight really excellent plays. But so have most of our skill position guys.

 

There are a lot of other likely reasons for our offensive improvement around mid-season.

 

I wouldn't expect to see anything much that breaks any trends the next two weeks now, without much to play for. Hopefully he really shows out in the playoffs. I'm hoping so, but not holding my breath.

 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Thurman#1

[Billy Claude]

1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

What, specifically?

 

I read your post and went back through and read every post, hoping to find something, and I didn't, really.

 

Yeah, we might be holding him back for the playoffs. Or not. That's wishful thinking. Could be true, but there's no logical reason to specifically think so. 

 

 

I've got to agree.   A lot of the arguments you see in this thread sounds very similar to folks explaining how Star and Edmunds was much more vital to the Bills' success than it seems.

[frostbitmic]

If they weren't scoring points I'd be concerned about him, but they're scoring at a good clip. Whether he's THE guy or the decoy who takes up the opponents #1 DB, it's working.

 

As far as next year, As a 30+ yr old WR he's likely going on his last 3 yr contract at best. Will he chase the money or chase a ring ? ... I don't think Beane will be the top bidder for his services.

[Augie]

3 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

What, specifically?

 

I read your post and went back through and read every post, hoping to find something, and I didn't, really.

 

Yeah, we might be holding him back for the playoffs. Or not. That's wishful thinking. Could be true, but there's no logical reason to specifically think so. Yeah, the offense got better when he got here, but we were just as good with him on the bench as we were with him on the field. He's made seven or eight really excellent plays. But so have most of our skill position guys.

 

There are a lot of other likely reasons for our offensive improvement around mid-season.

 

I wouldn't expect to see anything much that breaks any trends the next two weeks now, without much to play for. Hopefully he really shows out in the playoffs. I'm hoping so, but not holding my breath.

 

 

 

I don’t see it here either, so it must be in one of the many other threads about the same stuff. Some of the smarter football people here have pointed out that without a legit threat on the boundary teams can cheat their safeties and coverages inside and clog up the middle. Cooper may not be perfect, but he has to be respected and that leaves more room to work for the other guys in the rest of the field. Just a couple steps can matter. There are much better descriptions elsewhere, but I think that is the basic idea. 

[The Jokeman]

4 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

He won't be paid like a #1 wideout. Probably not even if he acts like one for the next six games.

 

He'll be 31 next season and he wasn't wildly productive this year with either team.

 

The question is whether we want to pay him like a top-level #2. That he'll probably get from someone.

 

He got $20M a year for his last contract. My guess is he won't get that again, but maybe closeish, $12 - $18, depending how productive he is during the playoffs. Yet another guess is that we wouldn't pay that unless the other terms were quite team-friendly, allowing an easy and relatively painless cut if things didn't work out that well.

 

This is all assuming - as I do - that he's still having health problems  that are limiting his effectiveness.

 

 

 

Nah, not at all.

 

He's playing less than 50% of snaps and we're not noticeably less productive with him out there than we are when he's on the bench.

Teams in search for a go to guy for their young QB might be interested in Cooper, I mean I could see him returning to the Raiders if they draft Sanders in the 2025 draft to serve as their number 1 as he gets his feet wet. 

[LabattBlue]

I think the focus will be on getting Shakir signed to an extension vs signing Cooper.  IMO…both are not happening unless Cooper comes in with low demands.  

[Alphadawg7]

19 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

Amari Cooper had 8 games of 89 or more yards receiving in 2023 in 15 games played.    So 8 of his 15 games played were ABOVE his per game average.

 

It's entirely disingenuous to imply that he traditionally just has "a few big games" and the rest are "meh to invisible".

 

You continue to just make false narratives around stats you just made up.       

 

I said his career…guess I didn’t realize Amari Cooper only played one season in 2023 lmao.  
 

But hey, expecting you to read well, actually address the comments written, etc at this stage would be foolish for anyone to expect.  

[Mr. WEO]

he's drawing quadruple coverage FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!!!