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PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA - APRIL 23: A screen shows Omar Cooper Jr. of Indiana after being selected 30th overall by the New York Jets during Round One of the 2026 NFL Draft at Acrisure Stadium on April 23, 2026 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Lauren Leigh Bacho/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Right before the Buffalo Bills traded back a third time in Round 1 of the 2026 NFL Draft, the New York Jets moved from No. 33 overall to No. 30 overall in a trade with the San Francisco 49ers to select wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr., and a Jets reporter is reporting he knows the reason why.
On the Jets Collective podcast, ESPN’s Jets reporter Rich Cimini mentioned the Jets received intel the Bills were going to take the Indiana receiver at No. 31. Cimini had the following to say about the matter:
“They anticipated that. That was their intel. It’s funny how as soon as they traded up & took him, Buffalo traded out.”
Cimini has been around a long time as a reputable reporter, so there’s no reason to question his sources — he likely was given the exact information above by someone within the Jets organization.
Whether that “intel” is actually based in reality is an entirely different story.
On the surface, it’s completely logical and straightforward — the Bills had a presumed receiver need, the Jets moved one spot in front of Bills, picked a receiver, and Buffalo subsequently moved down from No. 31. Simple dot-connection.
Here’s why I don’t buy it, which too, is fairly uncomplicated.
As we all know, Buffalo held the No. 26 overall pick in the draft when Round 1 began, and Cooper Jr. was available when the club originally went on the clock. Didn’t pick him. Then, after their first trade back of the evening, the Bills had the No. 28 selection. Didn’t take him then either.
President of football operations and general manager Brandon Beane has been candid over the years about how the team — and I’m assuming essentially all teams — operate regarding prospects with “first-round grades.”
(Importantly on that note, we all understood the 2026 class wasn’t chock full of them. It may have been the smallest number of first-round grades the vast majority of the NFL had within a draft class in a while.)
If the Bills had a first-round grade on Cooper Jr. — and maybe he was the only first-round grade remaining — he would’ve been the pick at No. 26 overall OR No. 28 overall. It’s exceptionally unlikely they would’ve been haggling over the pick number at which they wanted to select him. Also, most draft-day decisions come via the team’s horizontal board anyway.
To prove Beane operates in this manner — disregarding pick number when selecting a prospect, particularly in Round 1 — in 2022 and 2023, he saw Kaiir Elam and Dalton Kincaid as the last remaining first-round grades on Buffalo’s board. As they got close, he trade up to get them, not in the least bit concerned about which number pick in the 20s each were selected. In 2022, getting Elam at No. 25 (Buffalo’s original pick number) or No. 23 was irrelevant. The same applied the following year when landing Kincaid at No. 27 (Buffalo’s original pick) or No. 25.
Therefore, while it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the Jets sniped Omar Cooper Jr. away from the Bills by moving ahead of Buffalo at pick No. 30, that line of thinking completely ignores what initially transpired for the Bills to get the No. 30 overall pick.
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