Fantasy Football Impact Of Amari Cooper Trade To Bills: Dalton Kincaid, Keon Coleman, Khalil Shakir, Jerry Jeudy, Josh Allen

Ted breaks down the fantasy football impacts of Amari Cooper being traded from the Browns to the Bills.

For a league that normally doesn’t see many big names move in the trade market, today has been insane for the NFL. Those of us on the Pacific coast woke up to the news that Davante Adams had been traded to the Jets (check out Morgan Rode’s fantasy football analysis of that move), and the Browns dealt Amari Cooper to the Bills just a few hours later. In this article, I’ll break down the fantasy football impact of the Cooper trade, which has huge ramifications in both Buffalo and Cleveland.

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Fantasy Football Impact Of Amari Cooper Trade

Winner: Amari Cooper 

Let’s start with the man of the hour, who is also the single biggest mover as a result of this trade. Despite seeing elite volume in Cleveland, Cooper was borderline unstartable. A combination of Deshaun Watson’s incompetence and some uncharacteristic drops from Cooper himself meant he somehow turned a 50% air yards share into just one game inside the top 40 weekly receivers. 

That won’t be the case in Buffalo, as the upgrade from Watson to Josh Allen cannot be overstated. Cooper should also step right into a big role, as the Bills’ attempt to replace Stefon Diggs with some combination of Keon Coleman, Khalil Shakir, and Dalton Kincaid has not been particularly successful. 

With that said, we shouldn’t get too excited just yet. At 30 years old, Cooper has not been his usual self so far this season. He ranks dead last among 93 qualified receivers and tight ends in ESPN’s Receiver Score. PFF isn’t as down on him as ESPN, but his 63.6 Receiving Grade is still easily the worst of his career … except for 2017, the year before the Raiders traded him to Dallas. Cooper’s struggles may be explained by the fact that the veteran checked out due to Cleveland’s overall offensive incompetence, but there’s also a chance he’s lost a step. The Bills have also employed a rush-heavy offense so far this season, which could further impact Cooper’s value.

With all that said, this is still undeniably a massive win for Cooper. Once he settles into his new home in Buffalo, he could push for high-end WR2 production as Allen’s top target. 

Losers: Dalton Kincaid, Khalil Shakir, Keon Coleman

Let’s stay in Buffalo for a bit with the three biggest losers as a result of this deal. To a certain extent, all three of these players have had their value propped up by the idea that they might eventually emerge as Josh Allen’s favorite target. The arrival of Cooper means that hope is essentially dead.

Khalil Shakir

Of these three, I’m least worried about Shakir, who should maintain his role in the slot for the Bills’ offense. His targets may go down slightly, but he won’t lose too much value.

Dalton Kincaid

I’ve been out on Kincaid since the preseason, but he at least has the benefit of competing in a barren tight end landscape. The ascension to elite TE status that many were hoping for from Kincaid is officially dead with Cooper’s arrival ... but I already thought that was dead, so I’m not moving him much in my rankings. He remains a borderline TE1, meaning he will have some big games and also his fair share of duds. 

Keon Coleman

Coleman is the true biggest loser from this news. He was already a borderline rosterable player, but the hope was that the rookie would expand his role as the season went on and eventually be the Bills' clear WR1. With Cooper in town, Coleman will likely find himself stuck in the “a couple of jump balls a game” role he is currently filling. That makes him droppable in shallower formats. 

Winners: Jerry Jeudy, David Njoku  

Vacated targets aren’t always as real as fantasy managers would like them to be, but at least some of Cooper’s 50% air yards share will have to be spread around the players left in Cleveland. 

Jerry Jeudy

As the Browns’ new WR1, Jeudy will likely find himself in a similar position to the one Cooper was in: seeing plenty of volume but held back by atrocious QB play. He’s worth adding if he is available in any leagues, but don’t expect reliable fantasy production. 

David Njoku

Njoku, however, is very interesting. He led all tight ends in target share in Week 6 at 30.4%, and that suddenly doesn’t seem like an unrealistic number for him to maintain over the rest of the season (for context, Trey McBride currently leads all TEs with a 25.7% target share). Especially in PPR leagues, I like Njoku’s chances to see enough targets to provide solid TE1 numbers the rest of the way. 

Winner: Josh Allen

It’s a testament to Allen’s greatness that he is currently the fantasy QB5 without having a reliable top target. However, his passing numbers have still been way down to start the season: He is averaging just 193 yards per game through the air, 60 yards fewer than in any of the previous four seasons. 

That number is almost certain to go up with Cooper’s arrival, especially because this move indicates that the Bills are not content with how run-heavy their offense has been thus far. I don’t think this moves the needle enough for Allen to reclaim his QB1 overall status, but it solidifies him as a locked-in top-five option for the rest of the season.

Loser: Deshaun Watson

Yesterday, I wouldn’t have said it was even possible for Deshaun Watson to be a bigger loser than he already is. Today, I stand corrected. Whatever marginal value Watson had in 2-QB leagues, it gets a downgrade without his top target.

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