Amari Cooper is currently holding out as he looks for a contract extension with the Cleveland Browns. The 10th-year veteran is entering his third season in Cleveland and is coming off his seventh 1,000-yard campaign. He crossed that mark in 2022 and 2023 with the Browns, becoming the first player in team history to accomplish the feat in consecutive seasons.
He’s earned every penny he’s been paid so from from his five-year, $100 million deal originally signed in 2020 with the Dallas Cowboys. Cooper is set to make $20 million this year with a cap hit of $23.776 million. It’s also hard to say he doesn’t deserve a pay raise considering how much money wideouts are making right now.
While that’s true of Cooper, not every player earns the contract they sign. Here we look at three such examples from the Browns 2023 roster.
Looking for more speed at wide receiver, the Browns signed Marquise Goodwin to a one-year deal worth $1.7 million. That’s not a lot for a player with his experience. Goodwin entered the 2023 campaign with nine years of experience under his belt. He played in 102 games with 187 receptions for 3,023 yards and 18 touchdowns.
Those numbers aren’t elite but he offered game-changing speed and just had 387 yards and four touchdowns the prior year. He was expected to have similar numbers as the potential WR3 but was slowed by blood clots in his lungs and legs.
Goodwin surprisingly returned by Week 1 but didn’t catch a pass until Week 3 — which went for one yard. By season’s end, he had just 10 receptions for 67 yards and four rushing attempts for 33 yards. He did haul in a 57-yarder in their Week 15 win over the Chicago Bears but that makes the remainder of the season look worse — he managed just 43 total yards all year outside of that grab.
Not everything was bad though when it comes to Goodwin. His arrival did at least give them the confidence to move on from Anthony Schwartz.
