This looks personal.
The inevitable departure of Amari Cooper from the Dallas Cowboys is not all about that contract.
Since Mike McCarthy was hired by the Cowboys to replace Jason Garrett as head coach, Cooper showed enough of something else that a second NFL team wants him out of their locker room.
Cooper played 52 games for the Raiders before they traded him. He's played 56 for the Cowboys.
That's not a coincidence.
This is not all about Cooper's unwillingness to get COVID-19 vaccination shots prior to contracting the virus in the fall, which resulted in him missing two key games last November. But Cooper won zero points with the Cowboys when he passed on the needle.
That point irritated a lot of people with the Cowboys, specifically team owner Jerry Jones, who voiced his displeasure on his radio show on 105.3 The Fan in early November.
Cooper's salary will be used as the reason he will be dumped, but if McCarthy wanted Cooper on his team the Cowboys could make this work.
It is expected the Cowboys will cut Cooper before March 20 when his 2022 salary of $20 million would become guaranteed.
They are potentially dumping a 27-year-old, No. 1 wide receiver whose arrival to the team in 2018 elevated the play of quarterback Dak Prescott, which turned him into a dramatically improved passer.
Something about this smells.
Cooper is bright, thoughtful and by all accounts a decent man, but there is something about him in the machismo football world that irritates the machismo football person.
He's not with the right coach who gets him.
Cooper's first two NFL head coaches, Jack Del Rio and Jon Gruden, are your cliched, tough-guy, coachy-coach coaches. McCarthy is of a similar fabric.
Cooper may have been better aligned for a Jason Garrett.
McCarthy and Gruden actually worked together once as assistants at the University of Pittsburgh for one season, back in 1991.
Cooper fits well on a football field, his personality in a football locker room is a squeeze. He's a reader who plays chess, and is well aware of his life away from football, with an eye on his life after his playing career is over.
It's not hard to see how he might rub some coaches the wrong way. A lot of coaches want their players to be entirely about football.
The Cowboys celebrated when they acquired Cooper from the Raiders in their trade in 2018, but there was a reason Oakland traded a legit No. 1 wide receiver.
Gruden did not like Cooper.
When Jerry and the Cowboys offered their 2019 first-round pick for Cooper, the Raiders were only too glad to swap.
Cooper was 24, and still had two years remaining on his rookie contract, which he signed shortly after he was selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2015 draft.
The fact that the Raiders were this eager to a trade player with those qualities was telling, and a warning.
According to people familiar with Cooper's NFL trajectory, the Raiders' coaching staff thought he was soft, that he could be roughed up, easily knocked off his routes, and didn't want to go to certain areas on the field. Among other concerns.
Since coming to the Cowboys in October of 2018, Cooper showed none of those particular traits.
He's played through some nagging ailments, and been a reliable, durable pro. In 2019, his first full season with the Cowboys, he had a career season with 79 receptions for 1,189 yards and eight touchdowns.
Garrett was let go after the the 2019 season ended.
On Jan. 7, 2020, the Cowboys hired McCarthy.
On March 16, 2020, the Cowboys handed Cooper a five-year, $100 million contract.
The entire 2020 season was a COVID-covered mess, the Cowboys were terrible, but Cooper finished with 92 receptions for 1,114 yards despite playing without Prescott for most of the season. Garrett Gilbert, Andy Dalton and Ben DiNucci all served as starting quarterbacks.
Then, 2021. Cooper was the No. 1 receiver for the best offense in the NFL, and yet he caught 65 passes for 865 yards. Hardly worth $20 million.
McCarthy has been with Cooper for two seasons, and, for some reason, this is not working.
There is a reason why two NFL teams that essentially used a first-round draft pick on Cooper are dumping him before his 28th birthday.
It's not productivity.
It's not ability.
It's not injuries.
It's not the contract.
There is something about Amari Cooper that coaches like Jack Del Rio, Jon Gruden and now Mike McCarthy do not want in their locker rooms.
