Bills acquire wide receiver Amari Cooper from Browns, giving QB Josh Allen a much-needed playmaker

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Bills acquire wide receiver Amari Cooper from Browns, giving QB Josh Allen a much-needed playmaker

2024-10-16 06:49 Last Updated At：06:50

Amari Cooper went from a fading No. 1 wide receiver in Cleveland to a top one with Buffalo.

Looking to add a playmaker for quarterback Josh Allen, the Bills acquired Cooper on Tuesday in a trade with the skidding Browns, whose season seems to be unraveling by the week with the NFL’s worst offense.

Just hours after the New York Jets acquired Davante Adams to pair with Aaron Rodgers, the Bills pulled off their own big deal, one they hope will keep them ahead of their AFC East rivals and on track to make a deep postseason run.

Cooper is a five-time Pro Bowler and his arrival will give Buffalo’s patchwork receiving group a boost. The Bills have needed a player of Cooper’s stature since trading Stefon Diggs to Houston during the offseason.

“Any time you feel like you’re improving as a football team, I would say yes,” coach Sean McDermott said when asked if the trade gives the team a jolt of energy.

“But on paper is one thing, right? At the end of the day, can the person play and help us? That’s really what we’re here to see over the next couple of days,” he added. “And I would hope that the answer to all of that is yes.”

Cooper was scheduled to practice Wednesday as Buffalo prepares to host Tennessee this weekend.

The Bills sent a third-round pick in the 2025 draft and a seventh-rounder in 2026 to Cleveland for Cooper and a sixth-round pick in 2025. The swap came a day after the Bills (4-2) beat the Jets 23-20.

For Cooper, the deal ends a disappointing and disjointed third season with Cleveland.

The 30-year-old, who was in his final year under contract, has made numerous uncharacteristic drops that didn’t help struggling Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson get his game on track.

“Move or rust,” Cooper posted on Instagram.

Cooper’s departure will deprive Watson of a key option and push Jerry Jeudy, Elijah Moore and Cedric Tillman up on the depth chart. Jeudy, who came to Cleveland in an offseason trade from Denver, has 20 catches for 248 yards and a touchdown.

Moore has 16 catches for 95 yards but suffered a rib injury in Sunday’s loss. Tillman was expected to do big things in his second season, but the third-round pick has just three catches.

A change of scenery could be good for Cooper, the only player in Browns history to have consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. Following a slow start, he was still leading Cleveland with 24 catches for 250 yards and two touchdowns.

But he and Watson have not been on the same page for most of the season, and Cooper only had 12 catches for 137 yards in his past three games.

Still, he was an invaluable part of Cleveland’s turnaround the past two seasons.

“We appreciate Amari’s hard work, professionalism and on-field contributions throughout his two-plus seasons with us,” Browns general manager Andrew Berry said. “He created many memorable moments with us and was an integral part of our 2023 playoff team. We wish him the best in Buffalo as he continues his NFL career.”

Aware the trade was possible, McDermott spent the morning watching tape of every pass thrown to Cooper this season to get a feel for the player. He also consulted with Bills receivers coach Adam Henry, who held the same role in Dallas in 2020 and ’21 when Cooper played alongside CeeDee Lamb.

“The things he said were positive,” McDermott said. “And so we wouldn’t have probably done this if Adam didn’t give us his blessing.”

One of the NFL’s best route-runners, Cooper will give Allen another option.

Khalil Shakir leads the Bills with 20 catches for 249 yards and two touchdowns. Buffalo’s receiver group is rounded out by journeymen Curtis Samuel and Mack Hollins and rookie Keon Coleman. Buffalo made room for Cooper by cutting Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who had two catches for 26 yards.

McDermott acknowledged Cooper’s ability to gain separation on defenders is something the team lacked.

The Browns’ decision to trade one of their top players could be a sign that the team has given up on the season. Cleveland (1-5) dropped its fourth straight game on Sunday, 20-16 to Philadelphia.

The Browns have yet to score 20 points or gain 300 yards in a game.

Cooper’s trade has seemed inevitable for months as the Browns decided not to give him the contract extension he was seeking this summer. They restructured his deal, converting almost $19 million of his $20 million base into a guaranteed signing bonus.

The Bills are only on the hook for $806,667 in salary for the rest of the season, which made Cooper — as opposed to Adams — affordable for a team that spent the offseason cutting salaries to free up payroll for the future.

The Browns acquired Cooper in a 2022 trade when the Cowboys looked to move him in a salary dump. Almost from the moment he got to Cleveland, Cooper, who starred at Alabama, became an invaluable leader for coach Kevin Stefanski.

However, the past few months have been odd for the dependable veteran.

He skipped minicamp in a contract holdout before the Browns reworked his deal just before training camp. Cooper was also the subject of rampant trade rumors — mostly involving San Francisco — before the buzz quieted down.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Germans mourn attack on Christmas market with no answers about why

2024-12-21 16:37 Last Updated At：16:41

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germans on Saturday mourned a violent attack and their shaken sense of security after a Saudi doctor intentionally drove a black BMW into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers, killing at least two people, including a small child, and injuring at least 60 others.

Authorities arrested a 50-year-old man at the site of the attack Friday evening and took him into custody for questioning. He has lived in Germany for nearly two decades, practicing medicine, officials said.

Several German media outlets identified the man as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

There were still no answers Saturday as to what caused him to drive into a crowd in the eastern German city of Magdeburg.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, he shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who left the faith.

He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he said was the “Islamism of Europe.” Some described him as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Recently, he seemed focused on his theory that German authorities have been targeting Saudi asylum seekers.

Prominent German terrorism expert Peter Neumann said he had yet to come across a suspect in an act of mass violence with that profile.

“After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you anymore. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists — that really wasn’t on my radar, " Neumann, the director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King’s College London, wrote on X.

The violence shocked Germany and the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that’s part of a centuries-old German tradition. It prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. Berlin, where a truck attack on a Christmas market in 2016 killed 12 people, kept its markets open but has increased its police presence at them.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser were due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives," Scholz wrote on X. "We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”

Magdeburg is a city of about 240,000 people, west of Berlin, that serves as Saxony-Anhalt’s capital. Friday’s attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers swarmed around the suspect and took him into custody.

The two people confirmed dead were an adult and a toddler, but officials said additional deaths couldn't be ruled out because 15 people had been seriously injured.

“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city," Saxony-Anhalt's governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters. “Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many.”

Authorities identified the suspect as a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006 and who had been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack on X but did not mention the suspect’s connection to the kingdom.

Christmas markets are a German holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages, now successfully exported to much of the Western world.

Hours after Friday's tragedy, the wail of sirens clashed with the market’s festive ornaments, stars and leafy garlands.

Magdeburg resident Dorin Steffen told dpa that she was at a concert in a nearby church when she heard the sirens. The cacophony was so loud “you had to assume that something terrible had happened," she said, calling it "a dark day” for the city.

The attack reverberated far beyond Magdeburg, with Haseloff calling it a catastrophe for the city, state and country. He said flags would be lowered to half-staff in Saxony-Anhalt and that the federal government planned to do the same.

“It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring," the governor said.

Aboubakr reported from Cairo and Gera from Warsaw, Poland.