Texans Trade For Cooks To Replace Hopkins

The Houston Texans filled their recently created void at wide receiver by trading for Brandin Cooks Thursday, acquiring the seven-year veteran Cooks and a fourth-round pick in from the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for their 2020 second-round selection, No. 57 over all.

Last month, Houston dealt away wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to the Arizona Cardinals for running back David Johnson, a second-rounder and a swap of fourth-rounders.

In both Johnson and Cooks, the Texans gambled on players whose physical condition has shrouded their once burgeoning careers. Cooks, 26, had posted four straight 1,000 campaigns for three different franchises—the Saints, Patriots and Rams. He signed a five-year, $81 million deal before this past season after helping the Rams to the Super Bowl while recording 80 receptions and over 1200 yards. Rams coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead had recently discussed Cooks’s game as his name swirled in trade rumors.

“When you have a player like that, it does basically create more space in the coverage shells that could allow for openings underneath, intermediate, things like that,” Snead told reporters at the scouting combine. “When you don’t have a player with that kind of speed, defenses will traditionally go, ‘Uh oh, they cannot get it down the field.’” 

But two concussions, his essentially halving his 2018 totals and a stark decrease in targets (dropping from 7.5 to 5.1 per game), along with the lowest yards-per-target average since his rookie year, lowered Cooks’s value. He had been traded twice previously, and both times the return included a first-round pick.

Prior to last season, Cook had already sustained multiple concussions in his career, most notably with New England in the Super Bowl when Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins concussed Cooks early in the game. Cooks has been durable, however, missing just two games in the past five campaigns.

Johnson, 28, had a breakout year in 2016, leading the N.F.L. in yards from scrimmage, but has struggled to regain his form since a wrist injury caused him to miss nearly every down of the 2017 season.

Hopkins, a three-time all-pro selection, was Houston quarterback Deshaun Watson’s most productive weapon last season, but his desire to be compensated accordingly factored into the decision to trade him. The Texans will likely end up paying out both years of Johnson’s deal, which totals over $18 million in base salary and around $21 million over all. They will pay just $8 million in cash and $16.8 million in cap space for a year to evaluate Cooks, and the Rams will incur almost $22 million in dead-cap money. Houston will have an out with no dead cap if he does not reach expectations, though he potentially has three years left on his contract after this season.

The Texans re-tooled offensively with Cooks, Johnson and the veteran slot receiver Randall Cobb, who signed a three-year, $27 million pact after departing Dallas. Their offensive line reduced its number of sacks allowed from a league-worst 62 in 2018 to 44 last season.

The moves also mean that there is plenty of pressure for pieces to fall into place. The Texans own just one pick in the first two rounds in the 2020 and 2021 drafts, and have no first-round selections.