The great Amari Cooper experiment is over.
The Dallas Cowboys have agreed to trade Cooper to the Cleveland Browns for a swap of draft picks.
Cooper and a 2022 sixth-round draft pick will go to Cleveland, and a fifth-round pick and sixth-round pick will come back to Dallas.
But this trade was about money, not picks.
The move saves $20 million in cash in terms of Cooper’s base salary for 2022 and it clears $16 million in 2022 cap space.
The Cowboys were going to cut Cooper before March 20 when his base salary for 2022 would have been guaranteed.
The picks mean they at least got something for him and didn’t let him go for free.
But it’s not an equal swap when considering the Cowboys surrendered their first-round draft pick in 2019 to the Las Vegas Raiders when they traded for Cooper midway through the 2018 season.
And then the Cowboys signed him to a five-year, $100 million contract before the 2020 season only to determine that the team’s offensive system didn’t value him as No. 1 receiver, nor did his play and production justify his $20 million salary.
