Dallas Cowboys appear to have made a colossal mistake in 2022

[buybuydandavis]

Dallas was just trying to off-load a 22 million guaranteed salary the last minute.

I've been told it was all about Cooper's refusal to take the vax. Guess you're not in that camp.

If it was about cap, they could have saved the same amount of money by not signing Gallup and Schulz.

And likely gotten two higher draft picks than they got for Cooper.

Cooper was a difference maker. Gallup and Schulz are a couple of the guys he made the difference for.

 

[buybuydandavis]

If it was a cap move, that was even worse because we did ZERO with the added cap space

The most obvious cap trade for cutting Cooper was signing Gallup and Schulz.

I'd rather have Cooper.

 

[youngjerryjones]

AJ Brown > Amari Cooper... I'd rather have a player with AJ Brown's mentality and physicality than a passive aggressive #1...will never forget the sounds on the sideline where he told Ceedee he didn't even want the TD...then you look at the sound on the sidelines with Parson's and he's telling LVE he's trying to make every play...you see the difference

 

[buybuydandavis]

It had become blatantly obvious that Cooper was not the one to take us there, especially at his salary.

You think Gallup and Schulz are?

It is certainly arguable that Cooper wasn't worth his salary. Don't think it's arguable that the combination of Gallup and Schulz are worth what Cooper was going to make, but that's how much we're spending on them.

 

[buybuydandavis]

AJ Brown > Amari Cooper... I'd rather have a player with AJ Brown's mentality and physicality than a passive aggressive #1...will never forget the sounds on the sideline where he told Ceedee he didn't even want the TD...then you look at the sound on the sidelines with Parson's and he's telling LVE he's trying to make every play...you see the difference

There are a few upsides to an unselfish WR.

Cooper was quiet. Reserved. Unselfish. Some great players were like that. Larry Allen was an extreme case.

But many people *not* like that consider being like that a character defect.

 

[cowboyed]

He was innocent,
Not a charge was true,
But the world will never know

Branded!
Scorned as the one who slacked,
What do you do when you're branded,
And you know you're jacked

source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/brandedlyrics.html

 

[jnday]

Ehhhh think there's something called the CAP and you just can't have it all.
800 yards and under 10 TD for Coop last season jeez we couldn't utilize him as the Browns seem to do so far.
20 million WR for us is a total waste of cap money and I agree with Jerry cutting ties with the Coop man!
We have a top 10 QB(Expensive to boot) and shouldn't need 2 # 1 WR and the Gal man on the team!!!

Honestly, they have a high dollar QB without the high dollar winning that should come with him. They shouldn’t have to pay several WRs big money, but they can not win without paying it.

 

[zeke21]

AJ Brown > Amari Cooper... I'd rather have a player with AJ Brown's mentality and physicality than a passive aggressive #1...will never forget the sounds on the sideline where he told Ceedee he didn't even want the TD...then you look at the sound on the sidelines with Parson's and he's telling LVE he's trying to make every play...you see the difference

Disagree with your logic there.. Yes Parsons wants to make every play.. because he is playing a different role. He can be a difference maker on every play.. if he is blitzing, in coverage or reading a RPO.

I know that we have come to expect all WRs to have the huge ego and want the play.. and I do think Cooper wanted the plays.. I think the context of what he was saying was that he doesn't need to pad his stats.. he wants team success.. or for the WR group to have success. He was mostly happy to play the decoy and drag the high safety if it meant that we were picking up easy yards underneath. That was sideline talk from a WR that plays their role.

Our problem was that we grossly mismanaged him, have a QB that can't read a field to save his life.. or throw an accurate long ball.

Cooper came in and made our offence look better.. made Dak look better.. if you can't see that losing him was a stupid call then I don't know what you are watching.

 

[Ranched]

No they haven't & who cares. He's ranked #30 while Lamb's ranked #8. Move on already!

 

[Hadenough]

Cooper wasn't working out here. I don't care how he does in Cleveland. He did the same thing when he came to Dallas from the Raiders. Starts out good and loses interest.

 

[jnday]

*To say Coop isn't good is stupid.
*Yes, it was terrible to not get compensation for him.
*Too keep bring up the topic is whack.
*Stephen did this with Dez too, so get used to dealing with incompetent GM.
*Ready for the game vs NYG so maybe we can get on with talking about the players on the team.

I understand your point, but there are a lot of threads that are currently active, so nobody is keeping you from moving on to another subject. I would think that the trade discussion will go on all season due to the “what if’s” involved. At no point in the season will the questions be answered about Dallas keeping Cooper and the type of season that the team would have had with him being the number one WR instead of Lamb.

 

[ondaedg]

It's a tough call to pay over $60M to your QB+WR. The Packers wouldn't even go there.

I don’t understand how so many Zoners come here and rewrite history to whatever they want. Facts be damned at this place.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2022/06/10/d...-packers-offered-bigger-contract-than-raiders

 

[mmohican29]

Look at Cooper’ first few games in Dallas, too. He killed it then as well. That is Cooper’s MO… he comes out blazing and then slowly loses interest once he’s proven he’s good and then tails off.

He did with the raiders, he did it here, and he’ll do it in Cleveland. It’s just not worth the money.

Agree with all of this. Also agree our compensation was symptomatic of how stupid and inept our Ownership really is.

 

[CouchCoach]

Was this really a cap move or something else?

Did Cooper fall out of love with the dysfunctional organization and did Booger show his displeasure over Cooper's personal decision about his own health? Were messages delivered to Cooper that let him know he was no longer the favored one?

And is Prescott such a company man and ventriloquist dummy for the ownership that he alienated Cooper? Sure seems like Lamb, who couldn't tun routes in Cooper's shadow, became Prescott's best buddy and Prescott sought out Lamb and Schultz as his targets when Cooper was getting open.

Cooper is a different kind of cat and we saw that in OAK and later in DAL when he feels alienated by his team. He is just not your garden variety NFL WR,

The Browns were the embarrassment of the NFL yet they made him feel welcome and critical to their plans. And he's repaying them just as he did DAL in the beginning.

Those here that trash Cooper seem to forget how he saved Prescott when he showed up. Prescott seemed to forget that as well.

 

[fivetwos]

There’s ONE reason Cooper is not here and Elliott still is……

Agents. One made sure the player was unmovable for four years, and the other left a clear out for the team after two.

 

[kskboys]

The colossal mistake was giving up valuable resources in kneejerk trading for him in the first place, and then having to immediately pay him.

If he hadn't "saved" our season, we might well have ended up w/ Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence, Jeffrey Simmons, Rashan Gary, or someone like that, D players that you can build a playoff D around.

 

[aikemirv]

Another Coop thread?

Trading him wasn't the mistake. As I said many times, I really liked him and his great route running. But Dak and Coop couldn't connect on a constant basis. And while that was on both of them in my opinion Amari was a no show in too many games which gave the FO an easy decision. This and Dak's no trade clause. (not that they would ever get rid of Dak, even without a NTC)

What they got for Cooper though was absolutely laughable. If you ever needed a proof that our FO is run by idiots, this was it. Embarrassing.

I have never seen any proof of Amari being a no show.

Dak on the other hand......QB has to throw it!

 

[MarionBarberThe4th]

Stings a bit to burn resources left and right. This roster needs 3-5 more blue chippers

 

[Ring Leader]

Was this really a cap move or something else?

Did Cooper fall out of love with the dysfunctional organization and did Booger show his displeasure over Cooper's personal decision about his own health? Were messages delivered to Cooper that let him know he was no longer the favored one?

And is Prescott such a company man and ventriloquist dummy for the ownership that he alienated Cooper? Sure seems like Lamb, who couldn't tun routes in Cooper's shadow, became Prescott's best buddy and Prescott sought out Lamb and Schultz as his targets when Cooper was getting open.

Cooper is a different kind of cat and we saw that in OAK and later in DAL when he feels alienated by his team. He is just not your garden variety NFL WR,

The Browns were the embarrassment of the NFL yet they made him feel welcome and critical to their plans. And he's repaying them just as he did DAL in the beginning.

Those here that trash Cooper seem to forget how he saved Prescott when he showed up. Prescott seemed to forget that as well.

Not an attack since I enjoy a lot of your takes, but I think you often opine just to be able to inject the term "Booger" in your comments.

 

[CoachD]

Just remember how the media and the talking heads constantly pointed out Cooper's stats after away games so let's wait for a few more of those and then we will see where we're at.