The strange handling of Brandin Cooks and his contract is over.
Despite an announcement earlier this week, Brandin Cooks has finally been released from the New Orleans Saints, according to Ian Rapoport.
The move was supposed to be straightforward, to put it that way. The Saints waive the veteran, allowing him a chance to catch on with a contender in 2025. Sounds easy, right? Well, not so fast. After the announcement of the move, Cooks remained on the roster with speculation of roster manipulation by New Orleans; the release was a formality.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk revealed the Saints and Cooks agreed to a contract change that could push teams away from claiming Cooks on waivers so he can choose his own destination.
"As to Cooks, there’s a belief in league circles that he has a specific team that he wants to join. A contender, most likely. And there was a concern that another team would claim Cooks, thwarting his effort to get to wherever he wants to go.
And so the Saints and Cooks worked out a new contract, one that contained a poison pill aimed at making it unattractive to claim him on waivers. The revised deal, a copy of which PFT has obtained, increased Cooks’s fully-guaranteed pay in 2026 from $1.69 million to $5.94 million, if Cooks is on the roster on November 21.
This would have allowed the Saints to release Cooks by 4:00 p.m. ET on November 20, with the team that claims Cook on waivers accepting full responsibility for $5.94 million next year.
Here’s the problem. NFL rules prohibit a team from creating a deterrent to waivers claims. The revision to the Cooks contract was obviously done for that reason. It gave the Saints a window to waive him before the $5.94 million became fully guaranteed in 2026, and it would have stuck the team that claimed the contract on waivers with the obligation.
Apparently after the Saints were told by the league that this wouldn’t fly, the Saints re-revised the contract, restoring the full guarantee to $1.69 million and giving the Saints until November 26 at 4:00 p.m. ET to release him in order to avoid it. Which means that, in order to get a free and clear release, Cooks is willing to give up both the balance of his current $1.26 million salary (he’s owed $420,000 from Week 13 through Week 18) and the $1.69 million guarantee in his 2026 salary.
So now, in theory, the Saints will cut him before the revised guarantee vesting date of November 27. Unless they can’t."
The issue then becomes one of ethics. Is this allowed, and will this set a bad precedent around the NFL?
"Per the source: “There is a story here that some want to go away quickly. But because the contracts were posted, teams know and want blood.”
There’s another wrinkle to this story, one that the league may or may not explore. The mere fact that the contract was revised to deter a waivers claim — with Cooks giving up more than $2.1 million to get his freedom to sign wherever he wants to sign — points to the very real possibility of the Saints, Cooks’s agent, and the team he’s hoping to sign with colluding to violate the tampering rules."
For now, Cooks has been waived, but I fear we haven't heard the last of this situation with other franchises likely to wonder how this was allowed.