LA Rams weigh 5 trading partners for WR Brandin Cooks

The LA Rams need more picks in the 2020 NFL Draft. Landing more picks may cost the Rams trading away WR Brandin Cooks

The LA Rams 2020 NFL Draft situation may be at critical mass.  The team must restock the roster, adjust to two new coordinators, solve the perennial mystery of the NFL salary cap, and determine who of the roster the team should keep close, and with whom the team should part ways.  Some of this situation is of the team’s own making. In the face of locking in breakout stars, the Rams negotiated premium priced contracts loaded with guaranteed money, in a belief that the market value would rapidly outdistance the team’s price paid.

And in some cases, that is not the case.  The Rams pushed a lot of cash in front of a few key players. Some have earned it. Some still have the jury out. Some are outright overpaid. One NFL trade stands out as contributing to this dilemma.

The Rams agreed to pay wide receiver Brandin Cooks at the high end of contract spectrum for the foreseeable future.  The same Rams traded a 2018 first round pick and sixth round pick to the New England Patriots and obtained WR Brandion Cooks and a fourth round pick in return.  The NFL Draft trade chart value for the exchange equated to a value of 734, or a value of a 1st round pick between 24 and 25.

Since that trade, the Rams opened their purse strings and pushed nearly $90 million toward Cooks. In his two seasons with the LA Rams, Cooks has hauled in 122 catches from 189 targets in 30 regular season games for 1,787 yards, and seven TDs.  He averaged 14.64 yards per catch for the Rams over the past two seasons.  That translates into an average of $16,687 per yard for the past two years.  While Cooks certainly played a huge role in the Super Bowl run from 2018, his 2019 drop off was a huge reason why the team failed to return to post season.