Getting to know Brandin Cooks

[Patriot Missile]

Tom Brady’s Deep Ball Numbers Will Make Your Jaw Drop To The Floor

Tom Brady has been one of the best deep ball quarterbacks in the NFL

Good call!

Mentioned to many friends and fans that it was his best deep ball year since 07. He also added the rainbow fade to the corners of the field and in the endzone. Almost unfair to the opposition really. Always puts it where he defenders dont have a chance.

 

[bbobbo]

A bit more formally, suppose we divide receiver attributes into classes X and Y with associated random variables X and Y. X is a measure of the standard attributes of a receiver, the ones that, say the Jets and the Steelers would seek: 40-time, TD's scored, etc. - those attributes that Antonio Brown and Odell Beckham exemplify. Y is the measure of attributes that the Patriots value but that other teams don't: 3-cone time, adaptability, blocking ability, self-sacrifice, reaction quickness, route running, team chemistry, ability to read the defense, and so on.

For this analysis, it doesn't matter specifically what's in Y actually.

Clearly, Cooks has a super-high X value. We don't actually know anything about his Y value, at least, I don't. All I know is that the Patriots selected him.

This framework falls into a rubric called Berkson's Paradox, and it's why I'm pessimistic. Berkson's Paradox states that positively correlated random variables in a population can become negatively correlated conditional on their sum exceeding some threshold.

If we assume that the Patriots select a receiver where X+Y is higher than some threshold T, then given that we observe a Patriots player with high X we are are actually more confident that he has low Y than if we had observed low X. This is true even if X and Y are positively correlated in the general population.

Of course, once we see Cooks play here we'll have more information. But Berkson's paradox explains why all these high X value players being signed this off-season are profoundly worrying me.

 

[hellolin]

For all the years, all of the fans here, year after year, complaints that BB does not give Brady a deep threat, despite the fact that we won 2 superbowls during that era. Let's see how this pans out, it might not be as what we wished.

 

[meatface]

I think im just noticing that its Brandin not Brandon.

 

[NG Pats Fan]

For all the years, all of the fans here, year after year, complaints that BB does not give Brady a deep threat, despite the fact that we won 2 superbowls during that era. Let's see how this pans out, it might not be as what we wished.

 

[pherein]

That really seemed to be blown out of proportion by the talking heads. Among the Saints fans that I hang with on a regular basis, nobody saw him as a locker room issue. When your team goes 7-9 for 3 straight years, but you consistently crank out top 5 offensive numbers, people have to find anything to complain about.

Talk to any Saints fan, and just mention the word defense. Then get ready to hear some real *****ing! LOL

LOL so true we cant talk about D without ranting, So many Brees years wasted. IF we just had a a dang #15 ranksed nothing special lol etc ....
The Cooks problems are blown out of proportion by the media. Hes a good kid and works hard. Never a problem in the locker room, and you pegged what ticks him off. He doesnt want to be on a 7-9 team, but loved our offense. Offense did everything right to win games but when the D cant get teams off the field., which is the Saints achillies heal..offence on the sidelines, and always gives up 7pts in the end.
We have even talked about please just let them score, because we can shoot it out very well LOL, and you need to make over 30pts or you lose.
Cooks will be missed here, and you got yourself one of the best WR's ive seen in NO, and thats saying something. Hes absolutly a top #5, and I dont see him failing with his past and work ethic. He has no posse.
I was saying the same thing abount Blount when he came and ppl were worried he might not fit or the tank was empy.

You scored a home run with this kid. Cooks will be a fan favorite, and I see BB paying him off in 2 years. He wont fail. He is going to free up the field for your other WR's/TE's and no one will be able to cover. Someone will always be open because they need a safety over the top of him. It will kill the blitz because when Brees saw one he would audible to Cooks to fill the empty slant spot, and hes so fast he will get there. So they will stop or get killed.

Now when ppl talk about his speed I think that needs to be explained. A 4.2 and a 4.6 is little to no difference in the NFL unless your on a track field. I ran a 5.4 in the 50 and got 32 TD's and 2657 yards in 8 games as a RB durring my senior year in high school. I destroyed ppl running in my 1st year in college. Cooks has RB second sight, I call it. Its knowing where everyone is in a 10th of a second and your best option. Not alot can do this.
Cooks has sustained speed and that is dangerous. All of the great RB's had that. Most cant do that past 40-50 yards. If you watch him run you will see him not show boat or look back. He looks directly forward and ****s his head back like a track runner. I did that to, and if you see him run at full sustained speed 98 yards he still has lots of energy to jump around in the endzone. Ive seen other RB's puke after a hard run that long. He has the endurance, and thats dangerous. His speed is legit because he can keep it up, over and over, and a CB will slow down exhausted trying to keep up with him even in 2 man coverage, and thats one reason he gets free in 2-3 coverages. Ive seen that in almost every game. He will break out. Most CB's just dont have his endurance and sustained speed level.

I mean Sanders was pretty fast but when you go from 4.3 to 6.0 after 50 yards you cant sustain the run. Mosts RB's or speedsters cant. Its one reason sanders was so dangerous. Cooks has that, and for anyone saying trading Cooks for BM is an even trade, errr I think thats not equil at all, and think BB knows that. Mosts RB's dont have sight even Bush didnt, but you dont run lateral to a LB or risk injury. Thats why most of the greats , if you watch them took them head on and had long carriers. Helmet to the knee is bad.

Kids got it all and could be a good RB, really dont give a Sh@t about 5 10ft. CB;s that make fun of that will get burned. I saw in in college and was like wow.. he could be something great. He likes to be hit, but angles are smart to not be hurt. Very few players in football like the taste of blood in their mouth, and go ok lets do this. Cooks is that type.



If were BB I would make him do WR drills and RB drills. He would be a threat lining up in the RB spot sometimes, and consider him a spoles type runner. Im just showing this because we didnt use him at RB and I think thats a mistake. Cooks has the ability to line up as a RB and make a sweep play,. I dont think he has inside ability unless the OL clears that out, but nether did Emitt smith. If I had to peg him NOW id say hes a Jonathan stewart/steven smith hydrid without the attitude, and better than smith. And I will stress this he might be a better runner than stewart in the secondary, not OL line, and just not tougher until proven.

Is this kid Moss ? I really dont give a Sh@t. Hes really really good and wont stop. Im sure he wants to break all records

Cooks will never be happy til he wins a SB, and thats cooks, and when he makes 1500 yards and NE fails he will be pissed, thats just cooks. I would be also, and so would TB right? so Cooks is in good company.

I am Pherein and I aprove of this messege

 

[Ivan]

For all the years, all of the fans here, year after year, complaints that BB does not give Brady a deep threat, despite the fact that we won 2 superbowls during that era. Let's see how this pans out, it might not be as what we wished.

No doubt, adding a great receiver who can score in any play is really going to hurt them.

 

[pazrul72]

LOL so true we cant talk about D without ranting, So many Brees years wasted. IF we just had a a dang #15 ranksed nothing special lol etc ....
The Cooks problems are blown out of proportion by the media. Hes a good kid and works hard. Never a problem in the locker room, and you pegged what ticks him off. He doesnt want to be on a 7-9 team, but loved our offense. Offense did everything right to win games but when the D cant get teams off the field., which is the Saints achillies heal..offence on the sidelines, and always gives up 7pts in the end.
We have even talked about please just let them score, because we can shoot it out very well LOL, and you need to make over 30pts or you lose.
Cooks will be missed here, and you got yourself one of the best WR's ive seen in NO, and thats saying something. Hes absolutly a top #5, and I dont see him failing with his past and work ethic. He has no posse.
I was saying the same thing abount Blount when he came and ppl were worried he might not fit or the tank was empy.

You scored a home run with this kid. Cooks will be a fan favorite, and I see BB paying him off in 2 years. He wont fail. He is going to free up the field for your other WR's/TE's and no one will be able to cover. Someone will always be open because they need a safety over the top of him. It will kill the blitz because when Brees saw one he would audible to Cooks to fill the empty slant spot, and hes so fast he will get there. So they will stop or get killed.

Now when ppl talk about his speed I think that needs to be explained. A 4.2 and a 4.6 is little to no difference in the NFL unless your on a track field. I ran a 5.4 in the 50 and got 32 TD's and 2657 yards in 8 games as a RB durring my senior year in high school. I destroyed ppl running in my 1st year in college. Cooks has RB second sight, I call it. Its knowing where everyone is in a 10th of a second and your best option. Not alot can do this.
Cooks has sustained speed and that is dangerous. All of the great RB's had that. Most cant do that past 40-50 yards. If you watch him run you will see him not show boat or look back. He looks directly forward and ****s his head back like a track runner. I did that to, and if you see him run at full sustained speed 98 yards he still has lots of energy to jump around in the endzone. Ive seen other RB's puke after a hard run that long. He has the endurance, and thats dangerous. His speed is legit because he can keep it up, over and over, and a CB will slow down exhausted trying to keep up with him even in 2 man coverage, and thats one reason he gets free in 2-3 coverages. Ive seen that in almost every game. He will break out. Most CB's just dont have his endurance and sustained speed level.

I mean Sanders was pretty fast but when you go from 4.3 to 6.0 after 50 yards you cant sustain the run. Mosts RB's or speedsters cant. Its one reason sanders was so dangerous. Cooks has that, and for anyone saying trading Cooks for BM is an even trade, errr I think thats not equil at all, and think BB knows that. Mosts RB's dont have sight even Bush didnt, but you dont run lateral to a LB or risk injury. Thats why most of the greats , if you watch them took them head on and had long carriers. Helmet to the knee is bad.

Kids got it all and could be a good RB, really dont give a Sh@t about 5 10ft. CB;s that make fun of that will get burned. I saw in in college and was like wow.. he could be something great. He likes to be hit, but angles are smart to not be hurt. Very few players in football like the taste of blood in their mouth, and go ok lets do this. Cooks is that type.



If were BB I would make him do WR drills and RB drills. He would be a threat lining up in the RB spot sometimes, and consider him a spoles type runner. Im just showing this because we didnt use him at RB and I think thats a mistake. Cooks has the ability to line up as a RB and make a sweep play,. I dont think he has inside ability unless the OL clears that out, but nether did Emitt smith. If I had to peg him NOW id say hes a Jonathan stewart/steven smith hydrid without the attitude, and better than smith. And I will stress this he might be a better runner than stewart in the secondary, not OL line, and just not tougher until proven.

Is this kid Moss ? I really dont give a Sh@t. Hes really really good and wont stop. Im sure he wants to break all records

Cooks will never be happy til he wins a SB, and thats cooks, and when he makes 1500 yards and NE fails he will be pissed, thats just cooks. I would be also, and so would TB right? so Cooks is in good company.

I am Pherein and I aprove of this messege

I only watched the highlight video and anyone can look special for 2-3 minutes of video so I take those with a large grain of salt. That said two things about it made me go oooo and neither of them were his top end speed. I saw plenty of DB's match him step for step down the field so unlike Moss he did not just run away from people with raw unmatchable top end speed what I did see is he hit top speed 2 steps faster then anyone covering him. He then had that 2 step lead the entire way down the field so once he is by you you won't catch him. Also unlike Moss he just strided and looked like he wasn't even running Cook's little feet were going a mile a min. Really nice to see and exciting to think about bit there are plenty of fast people in the NFL.

The thing I saw that really made me drool was the leaping ability, again not so much the pure athleticism of it as the timing to get the ball at the highest point between defenders and the willingness to get clobbered and come down with it. Now that's rare even for NFL standards. If everything I read about his work ethic is true and the *****ing about not getting the ball in a win is overblown this kid could be really special. I see 60 catches 1000 yards and 8 TD which won't blow anyone away unless they look at exactly what he is beating and what he is opening up for the rest of the offense. These next two years should be really fun

Edit: I also wanted to add I did not see jukes, moves, or powering thru tackles so I didn't see the RB ability you spoke off. I will of course defer to the one who has watched him for years and watch for those traits you pointed out. What I did see was a guy who gets North and South in a heartbeat and gets every yard that is there before contact but goes down the first hit.

 

[Oswlek]

If we assume that the Patriots select a receiver where X+Y is higher than some threshold T, then given that we observe a Patriots player with high X we are are actually more confident that he has low Y than if we had observed low X. This is true even if X and Y are positively correlated in the general population.

This is fascinating stuff, but you make a couple significant errors.

First, the formula doesn't acknowledge that T is unconstrained, which creates an unintended artificial limit.

Second, the formula ignores investment. I would concede the point if you were talking about two 7th round WR projects; you would expect the one with substantially lower X scores, in order to warrant his selection, to have a higher Y to offset it. That comparison doesn't hold if you are talking about players with substantial differences in acquisition cost, though.

Lastly, you make an equivocation error. That you would be more confident in Y with an observed low X does not automatically mean an observed high X indicates low Y. While related, those two claims are distinct.... and become even more so when you add in other variables like the missing investment above.

While I found this argument unconvincing, I must give commend your effort and look forward to further discussions.

 

[Uptown]

I think where Cooks will make the biggest impact is not in the deep ball, but in the catch and run. To stop the Pat's offense, you must get pressure on Brady up the middle with your front 4 only. Blitz him, and he will find the open guy, play zone and he will pick you part (ask the Steelers). But get pressure and play tough man on the short crossing routes, that's when the Pats have troubles.

Now imagine you are playing man and Cooks catches a slant, if the rest of your DBs are in man, by the time they turn to chase him, he is gone!

I think this is this the brilliance of the Cooks move, he is too fast to cover one on one
, and if you do, he will turn a ten yard slant into a 60 yard TD. You almost have to put a safety over the top on him. Which will open up the seam route for Mr. Gronkowski!

This offense is going to be scary good. It's the same offense that just put up 25 points in the last eight minutes of the Superbowl with the additions of Gronkowski and Cooks!

And Burkhead

 

[pherein]

I only watched the highlight video and anyone can look special for 2-3 minutes of video so I take those with a large grain of salt. That said two things about it made me go oooo and neither of them were his top end speed. I saw plenty of DB's match him step for step down the field so unlike Moss he did not just run away from people with raw unmatchable top end speed what I did see is he hit top speed 2 steps faster then anyone covering him. He then had that 2 step lead the entire way down the field so once he is by you you won't catch him. Also unlike Moss he just strided and looked like he wasn't even running Cook's little feet were going a mile a min. Really nice to see and exciting to think about bit there are plenty of fast people in the NFL.

The thing I saw that really made me drool was the leaping ability, again not so much the pure athleticism of it as the timing to get the ball at the highest point between defenders and the willingness to get clobbered and come down with it. Now that's rare even for NFL standards. If everything I read about his work ethic is true and the *****ing about not getting the ball in a win is overblown this kid could be really special. I see 60 catches 1000 yards and 8 TD which won't blow anyone away unless they look at exactly what he is beating and what he is opening up for the rest of the offense. These next two years should be really fun

Edit: I also wanted to add I did not see jukes, moves, or powering thru tackles so I didn't see the RB ability you spoke off. I will of course defer to the one who has watched him for years and watch for those traits you pointed out. What I did see was a guy who gets North and South in a heartbeat and gets every yard that is there before contact but goes down the first hit.

I agree highlights are over rated its just all the good stuff. None of the 70% of play which is just as important. Yeah he wears them out because its the same speed every play. He might be covered 2-3 plays but they wear down Ive noticed. Yeah your right once he hits that speed it wont slow down so you cant let him behind you.

Yeah everyone is fast in the NFL, its really a game of angles I think. He has great leaping ability and I agree with you but I think thats a 2nd to his ball awairness. Cooks knows where to put his hands to make the catch. I do completely agree with his touphness. That is impressive and his willingness to take the hit for the catch.
This is also why I think hes a threat in the backfield running.
I think hes special, he even has the look and the right name lol. I always say you never see a superstar named Hicknimbler lol
Not sure why that is but Hicknimbler with never be a Brady, montana, etc lol.
Cooks is a good name

Im kind of with you on the numbers. Its hard for QB's to get used to fast WR's Ive seen. Hes going to be a 1000 yrd guy 1st season, and if they double him all year, which they did here, he might even go 800-900 with more TD's on big plays, because Brady will throw to the open guy. ITs going to be not even fare I think bud lol, fun year. His threat alone because teams know he can ball opens up any offense.

He has knocked over LB's taking them on, and good RB;s do that for the angle. I think hes best on the screen, and see no ability to power run in the middle. Even if you want to fake a screen he would shift the D in the backfield. Im not sure of his blocking ability in a pass though we never used him that way. Hes survived contact a few time, but hes more of a Dorset fenece runner that can twitst on a hit. Yeah definately north and south which could be good on punts with his hands. I think the RB part needs to be tested.

 

[dtugg]

He's no Randy Moss, but then nobody is. Randy is the most physically gifted person to ever play in the NFL.

He should be a a very good player though and worth the trade.

 

[Simpelton]

Mentioned to many friends and fans that it was his best deep ball year since 07. He also added the rainbow fade to the corners of the field and in the endzone. Almost unfair to the opposition really. Always puts it where he defenders dont have a chance.

Honestly, and this is not intended as a disrespect to Cooks, but I think we might wind up seeing a bit of diminishing returns. Chris Hogan did a fine job on the deep routes. I'm sure Cooks will be better, but when you already have a guy doing the job pretty well, there's only so much additional value an elite guy can add.

 

[MrNathanDrake]

Cooks will be special in the Pats offense.

They will get him the ball in many ways. I expect 1,200 yards this year.

 

[NG Pats Fan]

Honestly, and this is not intended as a disrespect to Cooks, but I think we might wind up seeing a bit of diminishing returns. Chris Hogan did a fine job on the deep routes. I'm sure Cooks will be better, but when you already have a guy doing the job pretty well, there's only so much additional value an elite guy can add.

No offense, but clearly you haven't studied cooks very much. He brings a lot more to the patriots than just a deep threat. Cooks can lineup anywhere on the field, he is very good in the slot. He threatens the defenses short medium and deep. His skill set is versatile, he can leap high, make people miss, run away from them, and make big catches in traffic. He's an elite all around young WR, and quite frankly he is way better than hogan as a wide receiver. (no disrespect). He was elite in college, elite as a pro. Just a great player.

Bottom Line... he is young, cost controlled, highly productive, and his ceiling is as high as you can get as a WR. I can't fathom why people are against this move.