The Tennessee Titans were already going to have their hands more than full visiting the Buffalo Bills in Week 7. And now the Bills have added a 5-time Pro Bowler to their plate.
Shortly after the New York Jets raised the AFC East stakes with their trade for Davante Adams, it was announced Tuesday afternoon that the Bills had responded in kind by trading for Amari Cooper.
Cooper had been toiling away on a historically-bad Cleveland Browns offense this season. Now, he joins the 2nd-best QB in the league on a perpetually contending roster. The Bills sent the Browns a 2025 3rd and a 2026 7th for Cooper and a 2025 6th round pick in return.
This move makes the Titans already tall task that much more complicated. Tennessee is currently preparing to head into Buffalo and knock off a team that is much better than them at this current moment, and in doing so avoid a dreadful 1-5 start to the season. It's just the first leg of their road trip from hell, as they're headed to Detroit in Week 8 to take on a fantastic Lions team.
There's certainly some-glass-half full, glass-half-empty to this situation. The bad news is obvious: you now have to deal with Amari Cooper, a very good WR1, catching passes from Josh Allen, the best QB in the league not named Mahomes. That's very annoying. The good news, however, is that you face them just 5 days after they begin to really get to know each other. QB-WR relationships take time to gel, and getting on the same page doesn't happen in a week. Will Cooper be a handful regardless? It's very likely. But that connection won't have really formed yet, which is a gentle mercy for the Titans defense.
The other element in the Titans favor here is the fact that this is what they paid L'Jarius Sneed for. Before the Tuesday trade, Sneed was looking at covering rookie WR Keon Coleman and veteran WR Khalil Shakir. They're worthy opponents, but quite literally below Sneed's pay grade. The Titans are paying him north of $19,000,000 a year to shut down bonafide WR1's like Amari Cooper on Sundays, and now that's what they need him to do this week.
Unfortunately, that brings us back to a glass-half-empty point: Sneed has not lived up to his pay grade so far as a Titan.
This requires nuance, and an article here on AtoZSports.com later this week will go into the weeds on Sneed's play through five games, so keep an eye out for that. But long story short, he has simply not been good enough to begin his time in Two Tone Blue. If he doesn't turn in a performance akin to what we've seen from L'Jarius Sneed his entire career in Kansas City, Cooper will get the better of him and the better of this strong Titans defense. Josh Allen will make certain of that. It's a matchup that add a layer of intrigue to an already desperate Titans situation.
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