I've got Cooper ranked 19th in the monster tier of LB2 with upside, but I've had him anywhere from 6th to 22nd over the past two months.
I like Cooper. I think he plays bigger than his size, has some big play in him and is better in coverage and pass rush than given credit for. However, I don't believe it to be a foregone conclusion that Cooper will approach his stud pace of 2008 this year.
I won't make the long convoluted argument, but the Charger tackle opportunity is very likely to significantly worse this year, making Cooper's expectation lower than his career high 16 game projection last year. Add in what I believe to be a more rangy and competitive every-down player in Kevin Burnett and I don't see the consistent 90+ solo upside Cooper had a year ago. I think there's something to the preseason stat lines of Burnett and Cooper, and I think it's possible that a healthy Burnett out-tackles Cooper. For now, the big play value of Cooper and the durability history of Burnett is keeping me from putting Burnett into the top 30.
My rankings are based on upside, so the above weighs heavily for me. This LB2+ tier is already deep and I think guys like Justin Durant, Derrick Johnson, Demarcus Ware, EJ Henderson and Paul Posluszny all have more upside than Cooper. However, and this is where the difficulty of rank lists lies, I would probably err on the safety of Cooper over everyone on the above short list except Henderson if I were sloughing LBs and forced to choose among that group as a LB1.