Bears Named Top Trade Partner for $100 Million Veteran WR

The Chicago Bears had a relatively quiet start to free agency, adding running back D’Andre Swift and tight end Gerald Everett to the offense.

The Bears will still need to add multiple players to their wide receivers corps, which, at present, has just three players: DJ Moore, Tyler Scott and Velus Jones. Technically, Chicago also has WRs Collin Johnson and Nsimba Webster, but both are practice squad candidates.

With the top names in free agency dwindling by the day, a trade might be one way Chicago can still secure top talent at the position. Kris Knox of Bleacher Report has one intriguing idea: Cleveland Browns receiver Amari Cooper, who he listed as a top trade target for the Bears on March 9. The Browns recently traded for former Denver Broncos wideout Jerry Jeudy with the intent on pairing him with Cooper. That, coupled with how much Cooper has contributed to Cleveland’s offense over the past few seasons, make it highly unlikely the Browns would part with the veteran WR.

Cooper, who turns 30 in June, has amassed over 1,000 yards receiving in four of his last five seasons. He’s as durable as they come, never missing more than two games in any of his nine seasons in the NFL. He’s also an excellent leader and a sneaky-good route runner despite getting older.

“Amari is a perfectionist,” TE David Njoku said about Cooper, via the Browns’ official website. “When you see him running his routes, it’s so precise. Everything is calculated like his steps and lower waist movements. When he decides to show you one thing and changes to a different thing, that speed in between that motion is so violent.”

The 6-foot-1, 211-pound Cooper is coming off his seventh Pro Bowl season. In 15 games last year, Cooper caught 72 passes for 1,250 yards (17.4 yards per catch, a career high) and 5 touchdowns.

Considering he caught passes from five different QBs (Deshaun Watson, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Jeff Driskell, Joe Flacco and former Bears QB P.J. Walker, who Chicago cut in favor of rookie Tyson Bagent), that’s incredibly impressive.

He caught 11 passes for 265 yards in a memorable Christmas Eve game against the Houston Texans, which set a single-game record for the Browns. He also had a 51-yard TD snag against the Bears last December: Cooper has one more year left on the five-year, $100 million contract in March of 2020. His cap hit is just under $24 million, per Over the Cap. Cleveland has just over $1 million in cap space currently, which isn’t much. It’s possible the Browns would trade Cooper to free up that cap room, but that would be the only reason Cleveland might consider a trade.

Bears Will Have Other Options at WR

The Bears currently hold the No. 9 overall pick in the upcoming draft, which could be used on a top WR such as Rome Odunze or Malik Nabers.

The Bears will also have options in free agency, some of whom haven’t yet become available. The Los Angeles Chargers have both Mike Williams and Keenan Allen on their roster currently, and together, both receivers account for over $65 million in cap space. One of them is likely a goner, and the Bears could — and should — pounce.

Other wideouts currently available are Calvin Ridley, Marquise Brown, Tyler Boyd and Curtis Samuel. The Bears are far more likely to sign one of them or wait to see what develops on the market than they are to trade for a top WR right now.  If nothing happens in free agency or the draft, that’s another story, but we’ll have to wait and see.