Cooper’s back! The Dallas Cowboys re-signed Amari Cooper to a lucrative five-year, $100M deal. Cooper is the catalyst for the surprisingly potent aerial attack that the Cowboys displayed last season. Despite stumbling and sputtering down the stretch, Jerry Jones and the Cowboys front office did the obvious thing and locked in Cooper for the long haul.
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With the re-signing of Cooper, Mike McCarthy will have a Davante Adams–esque alpha receiver in this Cowboys offense. The receiver’s impact on the offense goes beyond catching 79 passes for 1,189 yards and eight touchdowns. Cooper also draws the focus of opposing secondaries, allowing Michael Gallup to feast on opposing defenses. In 14 games last season, Gallup caught 66 passes for 1,107 yards and six touchdowns as the team’s secondary receiving option.
But, if Cooper struggled down the stretch, why are we so high on him going into this season? Simple. Cooper was severely hampered by knee, ankle, and foot injuries for most of the season and it eventually became too much to power through. Despite that, Cooper finished 16th in targets (116), 15th in receptions (79), seventh in receiving yards, and tied for seventh in touchdowns. Under McCarthy in Green Bay, Adams averaged a lucrative nine targets per game from 2016-2019. In 2018, Adams was the WR1 in fantasy despite only playing 15 games.
Long story short, McCarthy and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore know how to maximize their passing games. Assuming he recovers from his multitude of injuries, Cooper should more closely resemble his 2019 first half form throughout 2020.
