Were LA Rams wise to trade WR Brandin Cooks?

The tale of two Texans

The Houston Texans, meanwhile, needed a veteran wide receiver who could make an impact in their offense.  The team had just traded away star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and a fourth-round pick to the Arizona Cardinals for RB David Johnson, a second-round pick, and a 2021 fourth-round pick. So the Texans gave up one of their fourths and Hopkins, for Johnson, Cooks, a 2021 fourth-round pick, and a 2022 fourth-round pick.

Brandin Cooks was an ideal complement to their offense. The Texans had WR Will Fuller, WR Kenny Stills, and added WR Randall Cobb in the offseason. Cooks rounded out a pretty solid receiving corps. Prior to his departure, DeAndre Hopkins was the favorite target of quarterback Deshaun Watson. But that connection began to suffer, much as Cooks had in the Rams offense.

Point made, more points

Defenses eventually detect tendencies, signs, and use that information to great effectiveness. So it was that Hopkins, while still one of the best receivers in the NFL, had become a crutch in the Texans’ offense.  Like it or not, the Texans acted to remove the training wheels from their offense. So far, the moves on offense have resulted in a slight uptick in the Texans’ ability to score from a year ago.

Of course, the Texans are not competing for a playoff berth as hoped for. But they are getting a great season out of newly arrived WR Brandin Cooks. His statistics this season are back up, rivaling the last season spent in New Orleans in 2016.  So for the Texans, spending a second-round pick to get a 1,000-yard receiver and get back a fourth certainly seems like a huge win on their part, right? So that means that the Rams lost this trade?  Well, not so fast, folks.