Saints waive Brandin Cooks, despite a league rule that seems to prevent it

The contract controversy that has become a very hot topic in league circles, but that has been largely ignored by the media, took the next step on Saturday.

The Saints officially submitted a waivers request for veteran receiver Brandin Cooks.

The move comes after two different revisions to Cooks’s contract. The first pushed a full guarantee for 2026 from $1.69 million to $5.94 million, in an apparent effort to deter teams from making a waivers claim for Cooks. If no one claims his contract, Cooks becomes a free agent and can sign with any team.

In exchange for the team’s agreement to waive Cooks, he relinquished his right to receive the balance of his 2025 salary as termination pay — a no-offset amount of $420,000 for the final six weeks of the regular season. His revised (and re-revised) contracts also gave the Saints a window to release Cooks in a way that wipes out the team’s $1.69 million obligation to him for 2026.

Under the relevant league rules, the mere effort to rework the contract to deter a waivers claim seems to prevent the Saints from waiving Cooks. It remains to be seen whether the league processes the waivers claim. The fact that the Saints have made a waivers request despite language indicating that the Saints are prohibited from requesting waivers after attempting to revise the contract in an effort to deter waivers claims seems to indicate that the league is allowing them to proceed.

“I’m pretty shocked,” a high-ranking official with another team told PFT in reaction to the Saints’ waiver of Cooks.

It’s possible that Cooks will be claimed on waivers. If, as is believed, he’s planning to sign with a potential Super Bowl contender, any non-contender can short-circuit his path to his preferred destination by making a claim.

Regardless, the rules as written seem to prevent the waivers claim, given that the Saints tried to boost Cooks’s guarantees in 2026 in an effort to make it less likely he’d be claimed. We’ve asked the league to clarify the situation, and to explain the apparent failure to apply the relevant rule.

As of this posting, the league has not responded. While we don’t anticipate a response, we plan to keep asking for one.