Texans receiver Brandin Cooks has 18 million reasons to get over the fact that he wasn’t traded.
With Cooks missing a couple of practices and not playing in tonight’s game against the Eagles due to his apparent unhappiness with the fact that he wasn’t traded, Cooks could be in danger of losing the very thing that made a trade impossible — his fully-guaranteed 2023 base salary of $18 million.
Under his contract, a copy of which PFT has obtained, the guaranteed salary for 2023 becomes “NULL AND VOID” if Cooks commits a “default” user the specific terms of the contract.
A default occurs if (among other things) the player, without “prior written consent” of coach Lovie Smith or G.M. Nick Caserio, “fails to practice with or play for Club” for reasons other than a football-related injury or illness.
If, as it appears, Cooks has checked out this week due to the fact that he wasn’t traded, the Texans could wipe his 2023 guarantee off the books — and then cut him.
Cooks wasn’t traded because no one wanted to inherit that salary. Now, based on Cooks’s reaction, there may eventually be no salary to inherit.