{"id":184640,"date":"2024-08-10T15:00:31","date_gmt":"2024-08-10T19:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=184640"},"modified":"2024-08-10T08:27:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T12:27:44","slug":"amari-cooper-trade-brandon-aiyuk-instagram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/08\/10\/amari-cooper-trade-brandon-aiyuk-instagram\/","title":{"rendered":"$100 Million Wideout Begs For Trade &#8211; Could Panthers, Chargers Land Him?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If wide receiver Amari Cooper had his way, he would&#8217;ve joined the San Francisco 49ers as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/08\/05\/panthers-chargers-brandon-aiyuk\/\" target=\"_self\">Brandon Aiyuk trade<\/a>. The 49ers star wideout has been searching for a new home for quite some time now, and the Browns nearly landed him. According to <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsportsbayarea.com\/nfl\/san-francisco-49ers\/brandon-aiyuk-contract-extension-trade-rumors\/1768034\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Maicco of <em>NBC Sports Bay Area<\/em><\/a>, Aiyuk rejected a trade that would&#8217;ve sent him to Cleveland in exchange for a second-round pick, Cooper, and a fifth-round pick. Brandon Aiyuk doesn&#8217;t want to play for the Browns, and he&#8217;s apparently not the only one.<\/p>\n<p>Amari Cooper took to Instagram after the trade news broke and made it clear that he was more than ok with potentially leaving Cleveland. The wide receiver said he &#8220;wouldn&#8217;t mind at all,&#8221; which could lead to teams like the Chargers and Panthers knocking on the door and seeing what they could get.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Amari Cooper\u2019s latest IG story post\u2026 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gbhj4kB4QP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/gbhj4kB4QP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; ESPN Cleveland (@ESPNCleveland) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ESPNCleveland\/status\/1822096371169497571?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 10, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Amari Cooper On Instagram: &#8220;I Wouldn&#8217;t Mind&#8221; A Trade<\/h2>\n<p>The Los Angeles Chargers need as much help as they can possibly get at the wide receiver position. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/02\/02\/ladd-mcconkey-nfl-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_self\">Second-round pick Ladd McConkey<\/a> is having a promising camp, but <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023\/10\/19\/where-is-quentin-johnston\/\" target=\"_self\">2023 first-round pick Quentin Johnston<\/a> looks just like his rookie self &#8211; and that&#8217;s not a good thing. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman says he has &#8220;<a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SleeperNFL\/status\/1821928080593637496\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">major plans<\/a>&#8221; for the TCU product, but it&#8217;s hard to think of that as anything more than camp speak. With Justin Herbert likely to be battling through injury all year long, the Chargers should trade for a proven weapon like Amari Cooper.<\/p>\n<p>Even though he&#8217;s entering his age-30 season, Cooper still has plenty left in his tank. Despite a rotating quarterback room, the former first-round pick finished the 2023 season with 72 receptions for 1,250 yards and five touchdowns on 128 targets. He&#8217;d easily be the best receiver in Los Angeles, and he&#8217;s capable of being the top option in a passing attack. Head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/03\/15\/keenan-allen-stats-trade\/\" target=\"_self\">Jim Harbaugh parted ways with Keenan Allen<\/a> and Mike Williams earlier in the offseason, which implies wide receivers aren&#8217;t too important to him. However, perhaps this training camp shifted his opinion and could lead to an Amari Cooper trade.<\/p>\n<h3>More Help For the Panthers<\/h3>\n<p>Credit where credit is due, the Carolina Panthers are doing everything in their power to support Bryce Young. Despite entering the offseason with limited resources, Carolina rebuilt the offensive line, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/05\/06\/diontae-johnson-trade-continues-to-look-worse-for-pittsburgh-steelers\/\" target=\"_self\">traded for Diontae Johnson<\/a>, and used their <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/01\/16\/2024-nfl-draft-profile-xavier-legette\/\" target=\"_self\">first-round pick on Xavier Legette<\/a>. However, there is more work to be done here, as Legette&#8217;s slow start to his collegiate career implies he might not hit the ground running as a rookie. The Panthers need a legitimate WR1 to lead this offense, and Amari Cooper could be the ideal trade target.<\/p>\n<p>Diontae Johnson and Adam Thielen are fine veterans, but those two don&#8217;t have Cooper&#8217;s star upside. Recently, quarterbacks like Josh Allen, Tua Tagovailoa, and Jalen Hurts improved dramatically when paired with a star receiver. Now, it&#8217;s time to see if Amari Cooper can have the same effect on Bryce Young. If the 2023 first-overall pick still can&#8217;t get the job done, then it&#8217;ll be time to begin the search anew in 2025.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: Bob Donnan &#8211; USA Today Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Cleveland Browns were supposed to trade Amari Cooper to the San Francisco 49ers before Brandon Aiyuk backed out of the deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":184678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,30,18],"tags":[489,6254,7642,7809,7661],"class_list":["post-184640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-browns","category-panthers","category-chargers","tag-amari-cooper","tag-brandon-aiyuk","tag-chargers-featured","tag-cleveland-browns-news","tag-panthers-featured"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}