What You Need to Know:

• The Browns acquired Cooper for just a 5th-round pick and a swap of 6th-round positions with the Cowboys.
• Dallas’ primary motivation was clearly to unload a contract that runs through 2024, with cap hits of more than $23 million in each of the final 2 seasons and more than $10 million in dead cap over the final 3.
• Cooper joins an offense that targeted WRs at the league’s 3rd lowest rate each of the past 2 years.
• The Browns then dumped target leader Jarvis Landry (87 targets, 16.7% of team total) this offseason. Cleveland has also shed TE Austin Hooper (11.7%), Rashard Higgins (9.0%) and Odell Beckham (6.5%) since the start of last season.
• Through 7 seasons across 2 teams, Cooper has never reached 23% target share. Here are his annual shares (adjusted for games missed):

• It’s tough to argue against this Cleveland team featuring the weakest target competition Cooper has faced to date. The next most seasoned wideout is 3rd-year Donovan Peoples-Jones, with 78 career targets, 48 receptions and 11 starts to date. David Njoku and Harrison Bryant present receiving upside at TE, though. And Cleveland’s backfield returns intact (barring a Kareem Hunt move ahead of the season).
• The Browns have run at the 4th and 7th highest rates in the league in 2 seasons under Stefanski. But they’re paying Cooper a hefty amount this year and gave up 3 first-round picks plus a lot of guaranteed money to land QB Deshaun Watson.
• The new QB sure seems to be headed for some kind of league suspension.

Draft Sharks Bottom Line:

We could dig further into Cooper’s metrics, but we know pretty well what he brings as a receiver at this point. He’s efficient and productive but has never quite reached that top range of target share. Cooper went from trailing Michael Crabtree in Oakland to narrowly leading Michael Gallup and then CeeDee Lamb in Dallas. Perhaps the lesser WR competition in Cleveland gives him a nudge in that category. But we have to balance that possibility with an offense that has ranked among the most run-heavy since Kevin Stefanski arrived and – probably more importantly – a QB that looks like a good bet for suspension.

If the league finally sits Deshaun Watson down, Cooper would likely be catching passes from Jacoby Brissett. The best-case scenario there would be Cleveland convincing Baker Mayfield to reclaim his job. Either way, it would be a lackluster situation for pass-catcher ceiling.

Cooper is fine at his low-WR2 ADP, but his only path to significantly outperforming that is Watson avoiding suspension and playing like his old self.