Amari Cooper was traded to the Buffalo Bills Tuesday. Cleveland will receive a 2025 third-round pick and a 2026 seventh-rounder; the Browns send the current sixth they received from Detroit for Donovan Peoples-Jones to the Bills.

Cooper was acquired from the Cowboys prior to the 2022 draft for a fifth-round pick and a swap of sixths. He’s been well worth that price. There will be some significant dead money associated with Tuesday’s trade, but after the renegotiation of terms in Cooper’s pact during training camp, that money was destined to be on the books.

It’s notable that Buffalo has no expectation of receiving a third-round compensatory pick in the upcoming draft; their highest priced CFA who signed elsewhere, Gabriel Davis, has a contract with an average annual value of $13 million which means his worth to the Bills is a compensatory fourth-round pick. I posted the salary cutoffs for every round, here, back in March.

Compensatory picks begin at the end of round three, followed immediately by Resolution JC-2A picks (which are awarded for minority hirings). The rest of the comp selections are situated at the ends of rounds four through seven (though sevenths aren’t always awarded depending on how many have been issued by that point).

Because the Bills will receive no third-round comp (or JC-2A) pick in 2025, that means Cleveland will get Buffalo’s natural draft order selection in the third.

Browns fans may remember this type of circumstance having an effect in the 2020 draft. We’ll get into that right now in Part 2.

—@PoisonPill4