NFL insider reveals Cowboys salary cap savings from Amari Cooper trade

The Cowboys stopped the NFL world on Saturday, trading star wide receiver Amari Cooper to the Browns. While Dallas thinks highly of the former Alabama star, the Cowboys needed to move the wide receiver to clear immense cap space.

After the move was announced, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero revealed how much the Cowboys cleared from their 2022 salary cap due to the trade.

“The #Cowboys clear $16 million from their 2022 salary cap with the Amari Cooper trade to Cleveland,” tweeted Pelissero.

Last season, Amari Cooper caught 68 passes for 865 yards and eight touchdowns. Still, Dallas believed their cap space was more important than finding a way to work with the star wide receiver. Now, the task becomes keeping their tremendous offense humming with the former Alabama star shipped off the Cleveland.

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The Dallas Cowboys have traded star wide receiver Amari Cooper, according to several Saturday morning reports, and the trade package for a four-time Pro Bowl selection may come as a bit of a surprise.

Cooper, who’s spent the last three-and-a-half seasons in Dallas, has been one of the Cowboys’ top targets ever since his arrival. Yet the Cowboys traded him for pennies on the dollar, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who reported that the package included Amari Cooper and a sixth-round pick in exchange for the Cleveland Browns’ 2022 fifth-round pick and sixth-round pick.

Cooper finished last season with 865 receiving yards and eight touchdowns on 68 receptions, while appearing in just 15 games. Those were all career-lows for Cooper during his short stint in Dallas, as the star wideout had notched 1,114 receiving yards and five touchdowns on 92 receptions in 2020, and 1,189 receiving yards and five touchdowns on 79 receptions in 2019.

A product of Alabama, Cooper was a star in Tuscaloosa, too. In 2014, Cooper was named SEC Offensive Player of the Year, while also being named a first-team All-SEC selection, a unanimous All-American and the Biletnikoff Award winner. Cooper was selected in the first round of the 2015 NFL Draft, as the then-Oakland Raiders picked him with the fourth-overall pick.

On3’s Simon Gibbs contributed to the article.