Amari Cooper on not being holdout at camp: Different strokes for different folks
Cowboys wide receiver Amari Cooper supposes he could be holding out for a new contract, if he wanted to.
He sees what Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott is doing in hopes of forcing a big money contract extension.
He gets updates from Saints receiver Michael Thomas, who is also holding out in hopes of becoming the highest paid player at the position at $20 million annually and possibly re-setting the receiver market for Cooper.
“He has updated me maybe two or three times. I never call him,” Cooper said Saturday from Cowboys training camp, a place he wants to be and never thought about not being.
“Different strokes for different folks,” Cooper said. “Their situations are different than mine. I have a fifth-year option coming up to where I get paid a significant amount of money if I play on that. But the running back position, you know [Chargers hold out running back] Melvin [Gordon] is one of my good friends, and he tells me the contract he would play on this year, it’s nothing. It’s peanuts to an elephant. Everybody’s situation is different.”
Cooper has a guaranteed salary of $13.924 million in 2019 on the fifth-year option.
He showed up for all the voluntary work in addition to the mandatory minicamp before coming to training camp. He said he never considered sitting out and is mostly indifferent about the contract talk.
“I want to be here,” Cooper said. “I haven’t really been thinking about my contract situation because I don’t know. I don’t know why. I want to be here. I want to be out here running routes. I want to be out here catching balls from Dak [Prescott] because I think it’s necessary, and I think it’s going to help me achieve what I want to achieve this season.”
Cooper said he told his agents he doesn’t want a daily or weekly play-by-play on the negotiations.
“It’s never in my mind. It’s more in the media’s mind than in mine. I’m not even worried about it. Obviously I’ve never been in that situation before where I was up for a contract, but I just look at it as one of those things that’s going to happen when it happens. I’m not worried about it at all to be honest.
“I guess I’m just optimistic about it, and it’s something that’s going to happen whether it’s today, tomorrow or whenever. I’m not worried about me getting hurt or something like that and it not happening. I just don’t think like that.”
Again, it helps that Cooper is making $13.9 million in 2019 and stands to earn at least $16 million annually on a new deal with the possibility of it growing to $17-18 million, depending on what Thomas gets.
Different strokes indeed.
This story was originally published July 27, 2019 at 10:27 PM.
