Wide receiver Amari Cooper said reporting to the Buffalo Bills after being traded by the Cleveland Browns on Tuesday “kind of felt like a long drive to my first day of school.”
And the former Alabama All-American looked forward to the first day with the excitement of a star pupil.
“It did kind of, like, reinvigorate me,” Cooper said on Wednesday. “It motivated me, for sure. …
“It does 100 percent for several reasons, actually. You know, it’s just that feeling of having a fresh beginning, a new start, a blank canvas that you get to control your destiny.”
Maybe the feeling was boosted by the Bills’ 4-2 record, the best in the AFC East. Cleveland has a 1-5 mark.
“The goal of playing in the NFL is to win,” Cooper said, “so to come in and be on a winning team, it’s obviously a good feeling. It’s not a bad feeling.”
The trade moves Cooper from catching the passes of Deshaun Watson to those of Josh Allen. Watson has five touchdown passes, three interceptions and a 76.6 passing-efficiency rating in 2024. Allen has 10 touchdown passes, no interceptions and a 106.8 passing-efficiency rating this season.
“As far as the way he plays, I mean, it’s phenomenal,” Cooper said of Allen. “Every time I turn on the television and watch him play, he plays with a lot of grit, a lot of hustle. He plays hard. And, obviously, he’s been one of the top quarterbacks in the game for a while now, so just to be able to play with him and experience that in person, I think it’s going to be real cool.”
Allen has had a 1,000-yard receiver in Buffalo for five consecutive seasons, with Stefon Diggs filling that role for the past four. The Bills traded Diggs to the Houston Texans in the offseason. This season, Buffalo was one of the four NFL teams that did not have a player with 250 receiving yards yet in 2024.
“Very excited about him,” Allen said on Wednesday. “I’ve been a big fan of his for a very long time. Very smart, very detailed in the way that he runs his routes, and I think he can help us a lot. …
“We’ve got a few teammates that have been teammates with him before and have just raved about him as a guy, as a character, so excited to have him in our locker room, and he’ll fit in quite nicely here.”
A five-time Pro Bowler and a seven-time 1,000-yard receiver, Cooper comes to Buffalo after becoming the first Cleveland player to record consecutive 1,000-yard seasons and setting the franchise single-game record for receiving yards with 11 receptions for 265 yards and two touchdowns in a 36-22 victory over Houston Texans on Dec. 24, 2023.
But through six games in 2024, Cooper had 24 receptions for 250 yards and two touchdowns with the Browns.
“One of the things that we hop on as football players is to just be where your feet are,” Cooper said. “You can look back at the past, but only to learn from it. This game comes with a lot of ebbs and flows. Yeah, we weren’t having the best season over there in Cleveland. But this season is long. You know what I mean? But, obviously, I’m not there anymore, so I’m hyper-focused on my situation now.”
The Browns sent Cooper with a sixth-round choice in the 2025 NFL Draft to the Bills in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft and a seventh-round selection in the 2026 NFL Draft.
This is the third time that Cooper has been traded. The Oakland Raiders, who selected Cooper with the fourth choice in the 2015 NFL Draft, received a first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft from the Dallas Cowboys in exchange for the wide receiver on Oct. 22, 2018. The Cowboys traded Cooper and a sixth-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft to the Browns for a fifth- and sixth-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft on March 11, 2022.
Cooper has been a Pro Bowler and a 1,000-yard receiver at each stop.
“Just being me,” Cooper said. “I’ve been playing this game for a long time — obviously, long before the NFL. I think I have a good feel for the game. Just got to go out there and, like I said before, it’s just football. Go out there, know your assignment and just play freely.”
Cooper said the past trades, particularly the in-season move from the Raiders to the Cowboys, would help him in his move to Buffalo.
“Experience is the best teacher 100 percent,” Cooper said. “It’s easier to go through something that you’ve been through before, so definitely can lean on that, for sure.”
There is a difference, though. He joined Dallas during the week of its open date. The Bills play the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.
“The one time I did get traded midseason, the Cowboys, they had a bye week that same week,” Cooper said, “so I kind of had a lot of time to prepare, to know the system and things of that nature, so this is definitely new for me.
“But at the end of the day, it’s just football. I think I’m a pretty cerebral guy, at least cerebral enough to learn the playbook as fast as I can so I can go out there and get lined up and just run routes, catch the ball, get open, compete in the run game.”
The Bills’ wide-receivers coach, Adam Henry, worked with Cooper as the Cowboys’ wide-receivers coach in 2020 and 2021.
“It helps a lot,” Cooper said, “just with comfortability, I would say, seeing a familiar face, especially having that face be your coach, the guy you’re going to interact with on a day-to-day basis. And I know him. I played for him for two years, so I would just say just a comfortability factor.”
The Bills and the Titans will square off at noon CDT Sunday at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York.
“The expectation would just be to take full advantage of my opportunities,” Cooper said of Game 1 with Buffalo. “That’s it. I don’t know what opportunities I will be blessed with for Sunday, but whatever it is, just take full advantage of it.”
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
