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In a stunning trade, the New England Patriots have traded wide-receiver (WR)Brandin Cooks and a fourth-round pick to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for the Rams first-round and a sixth-round pick.
After being traded to the Patriots from the New Orleans Saints for the Patriots 2017 first-round and third-round draft picks, he has been traded to another team. After being traded to the Patriots, they picked up his fifth-year option. He totaled 65 receptions for 1,082 yards and 7 touchdowns, being the number one wide-receiver for Patriots quarterback (QB) Tom Brady after WR Julian Edelman suffered an ACL injury in a preseason game in 2017. That left Cooks to take over the job and be a big threat to secondaries. The Patriots were thin at wide-receiver, with Edelman already out for the season and 2nd-year Malcolm Mitchell dealing with a knee injury that left him questionable for the whole season. He eventually did not play a single game in the 2017 season. This left Cooks to be Brady's right hand in all games.
What does this trade truly mean? Cooks would have been a free-agent after the 2018 season and considering the amount of money receivers are getting, the Patriots would not have been able to give him a large contract, nor likely wanted to give him a big contract in order to focus on the future.
The Patriots now have Edelman, Mitchell, Hogan, Patterson(whom they recently traded for from the Raiders), and Slater(special-teams player) on their roster as wide-receivers. With the rumors of New York Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr. possibly on the trading block, the Patriots could snag him for the first-round pick they received from the Rams. Otherwise, I would hope that the Patriots will draft a wide-receiver using that pick considering the age of Edelman and Hogan possibly not being on the team after the 2018 season the Patriots will be thin at receiver.
