Rams trade Cooks to Texans

https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/news/texans-brandin-cooks-moving-on-to-houston/
The Rams traded Cooks to the Texans on Thursday, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports.

In exchange for their 2020 second-round pick (57th overall), Houston will get a 2022 fourth-rounder in addition to Cooks, who has been dealt by each of the previous three employers in his career. In two seasons with the Rams, he totaled 122 catches (on 189 targets) for 1,787 yards and seven touchdowns, including a fourth consecutive 1,000-yard campaign in 2018. He didn’t reach that threshold last year, though, due to suffering the fifth known concussion as a pro. Cooks will look to bounce back working with Deshaun Watson and in a receiving corps with question marks after Will Fuller (sports hernia) and Randall Cobb.

C’mon down Josh Reynolds.

i’m actually ok with this. rams need linebackers and olinemen. even an rb.

i’m not so comfortable with allen at center. i’d like them to draft one this year. i’d like them to draft a left tackle for the future as well. and some linebackers.

i think with higbee emerging cooks was a luxury. hopefully, reynolds can be the deep threat. kupp, woods, and higbee should be enough with the other receivers complementing them. i think even a guy like edwards-helaire in the second round could add another receiving threat.

i’m excited.

JackPMiller wrote:

I hate to see our salary cap. Probably not real good right now.

Just saw we are $5.4M over the cap.

Also, do not draft any skill positions. I’m OK with getting them as UDFA’s.

"This year, they get no cap relief by getting rid of Brandin Cooks… The Rams definitely will be needing to look into this receiver-deep draft for some depth."@LindseyThiry on the #LARams trade with @VeniceMase & @LAIreland on 710 AM ESPN pic.twitter.com/3TnIhKMCOz

— ESPN Los Angeles (@ESPNLosAngeles) April 10, 2020

Cameron DaSilva@camdasilva
The incoming class of WRs is historically deep – and so trading Cooks makes some sense.

Now, the Rams can (and should) capitalize on it in Round 2

nittany ram wrote:

Yeah, supposedly the first three rounds of this draft are polluted with WR talent.

zn wrote:

Cameron DaSilva@camdasilva
The incoming class of WRs is historically deep – and so trading Cooks makes some sense.

Now, the Rams can (and should) capitalize on it in Round 2

well, i had no idea.

The process date of the Brandin Cooks trade will be very important. Cooks holds $21.8M of dead cap w/ the #Rams. If this is processed after June 1st, that will split into $8.8M in 2020, $13M in 2021. If not, LA will lose $5M of cap space this year.

— Spotrac (@spotrac) April 9, 2020

TEXANS PERSPECTIVE

Sheil Kapadia@SheilKapadia
Texans trade 2nd-round pick for WR who totaled 583 receiving yards last year, is due $8M in 2019 and has a frightening concussion history.

Aaron Wilson@AaronWilson_NFL
Texans executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby has an extremely close relationship with Brandin Cooks and that was a major intangible factor in the trade with Easterby vouching for him, according to league sources.

Texans wanted a speedy wide receiver corps. Now, they have Brandin Cooks (4.33), Will Fuller (4.28) and Kenny Stills (4.38). Whether that will add up to equivalent production of DeAndre Hopkins is debatable, though

NEUTRAL PERSPECTIVE

Spotrac@spotrac
Top Single Season Dead Cap Hits (all-time)

1. Brandin Cooks, LAR, $21.8M
2. Antonio Brown, PIT, $21.2M
3. JaMarcus Russell, OAK, $18.9M
4. Nick Foles, JAC, $18.75M
5. Ryan Tannehill, MIA, $18.4M
Andrew Luck, IND, $18.4M

Peter King@peter_king
Assuming the NFL plays in September, Cooks will have caught passes before turning 27 from:
Brees
Brady
Goff
Watson

3 QBs who have played in Super Bowls and a fourth who has a good chance to one day.

@brandincooks is 26 years old. NFL teams have used the 20th, 32nd, 23rd and 57th picks in the draft to acquire him. First-, first-, first- and second-round picks spent to acquire one player in four distinct transactions. Cooks’ is one of the strangest careers in recent history.

Albert Breer@AlbertBreer
Retooled skill position group around Rams QB Jared Goff: Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, Josh Reynolds, Tyler Higbee, Gerald Everett, Malcolm Brown, Darrell Henderson.

Pretty different than it has been.

RAMS PERSPECTIVE

Rich Hammond@Rich_Hammond
The Rams will have to retain a $21.8 million cap hit in 2020 for Brandin Cooks, per a source.

the goal is to mitigate the number of those “something isn’t working” situations to begin with. That’s never going to be totally possible, but limiting them is the goal.

In cutting Gurley and Cooks, the Rams absorb a massive combined salary-cap hit in 2020 (it could be as much as $33.5 million) but free up space in 2021 (approximately $20 million) for an offseason in which they will need to re-sign or replace players such as Kupp, Jalen Ramsey and John Johnson.

The Rams’ trade of Brandin Cooks makes sense in the micro. They’re changing their offense and need long-term cap flexibility.

In the macro, though, it raises serious questions about what has been going on in the front office.

Cameron DaSilva@camdasilva
According to Over The Cap, the Rams have $58.4M in cap space next year – depending on what the salary cap is set at

Texans acquire WR Brandin Cooks and 2022 4th-round pick from Rams for 2nd-round pick

https://walterfootball.com/nfltrades.php

The pick the Texans dealt for Brandin Cooks is not the one they acquired for DeAndre Hopkins; it’s the 57th-overall choice; not the 40th, which means it’s theirs. This means that the Texans ended up trading Hopkins and 17 spots in the second round for Brandin Cooks and David Johnson.

This trade would’ve made sense a couple of years ago when Cooks was seen as a very promising, young receiver, and Johnson didn’t need a walker. However, Johnson is an injury waiting to happen, while Cooks has been a huge disappointment for his recent teams. He’s been a problem in the locker room, and he has also greatly underperformed lately. He caught just 42 passes for 583 yards and two touchdowns in 14 games last year, as he was phased out of the offense late in the season. Even worse, Cooks has a dubious history of concussions, so one or two more could cause him to miss an extensive period of time.

Bill O’Brien is the dumbest man in the NFL, so it’s only natural that he’d squeeze out one more bad trade prior to the draft. This isn’t as bad as the Hopkins deal, but it’s still terrible. If anyone in Houston is listening, please contact owner Cal McNair and send him this link so he can learn the harm O’Brien is causing to his franchise. I think McNair is spending too much time combing his mustache to pay attention to what’s happening with his franchise, so he needs to be made aware of how awful O’Brien is.

Meanwhile, the Rams obviously won this trade. Cooks no longer had much of a role on offense, so getting a second-round choice for him is a steal, especially when considering how bad his contract is.

Grade for Texans – D-
Grade for Rams – A+

Freeing up cap space for 2021 by moving players that right now they believe they don’t want long term. Makes sense to me.

Surprised the got a 2nd for Cooks even with giving the 4th back next year.

Well, they built a team that went to the Super Bowl. It kinda seemed like they were throwing everything they had at that little window.

I really have no problem with the decisions they made, then or now.

But I’d say the reality is they are no longer a championship-level team.
They seem like a middle-of-the-pack Wildcard level team to me.

I can live with that for another year.

w
v

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ross-tucker-football-podcast/id638447093?mt=2

this is a list of a whole bunch of Tucker and/or Cosell Podcasts.

wv wrote:

Well, they built a team that went to the Super Bowl. It kinda seemed like they were throwing everything they had at that little window.

I really have no problem with the decisions they made, then or now.

But I’d say the reality is they are no longer a championship-level team.
They seem like a middle-of-the-pack Wildcard level team to me.

I can live with that for another year.

w
v

My thoughts exactly.

Amateur GM time:

It’s a given they know a hell of a lot more about this stuff than I do. But from the outside looking in? It looks like the Rams FO made numerous mistakes, and they’re paying for them right now. They’ve snowballed, etc. and the team has been radically degraded. They’re in Cap Hell and lack draft pick capital as well. Five years with no #1?

Outside looking in, one would think that in the era of the Cap, you’d take advantage of one of the best management tools available, and milk that for all it’s worth: the rookie contract, especially Round One. Go with it as long as possible. If it aint broke, etc. As in, I wouldn’t have extended Gurley two years early, or Goff. And I’d be a bit more careful with trades. Not kewl with the rent-a-player route they took with Fowler and Watkins, for instance.

I think the FO must think that draft picks grow on trees, and they’ll just recoup them via FA losses. But we’ve learned that doesn’t necessarily happen according to plan, and it also seems to force the loss of key players like Littleton in the process. Plus, a third round comp is basically a fourth rounder, and so on and so on.

In short, I think a series of bad decisions led to this place, and it didn’t have to happen this way. As a fan, of course, I’ll keep hoping for the best. Been that way since 1966/67.