Last August, Eagles receiver Riley Cooper was on the verge of being run out of Philadelphia. Next month, he could be whisked away, riding on a large pile of cash.
Cooper is due to become a free agent. Per a league source, the man who slid into the starting lineup after Jeremy Maclin tore an ACL in the preseason, will have a significant demand for his services if/when he hits the market.
It’s unclear whether he’ll make it to the market. The Eagles would like to keep him, we’re told, but receiver DeSean Jackson already is making $10 million a year. As G.M. Howie Roseman has recently said, the situation gets complicated when Jackson is under contract and Cooper and Maclin are due to become free agents.
Cooper’s Chesney concert misadventures won’t be complicating his next contract. The shouting of a racial epithet quickly faded into memory after a short, self-imposed exit from training camp.
He averaged 17.8 yards per catch in the first year of Chip Kelly’s offense, and Cooper had a career high of 5.4 in the all-important (in Kelly’s offense) of average yards after catch.
With more than 50 free agents at receivers, the specific amount and level of interest remains to be seen. For now, though, Cooper could be one of the guys getting plenty of attention starting this weekend, when all the coaches, executives, and agents go to the Scouting Combine and engage in all sorts of tampering, which the NFL punishes only when someone is dumb enough to get caught red handed.