You are just stating the obvious, but any trade comes with a cost. I just don't think the cost is justified by the price and the EFFECT of that price. Some people think that a Cook's talent is worthy of a #1. Again it's just me, but I don't think any WR is worth that much, let alone a midget one. But that's just my opinion
The term you're describing is opportunity cost, and I'm definitely not overlooking it. There is an opportunity cost to any acquisition in terms of money, and an especially big one to any acquisition involving a first round pick. Go back to any thread over the last decade proposing that we trade a first rounder for some random player, and you'll probably find a comment of mine stating that the opportunity cost--young, upper-tier talent under 4-5 years of cost control--is too great. And yes, the cost of this transaction is high. But elite players don't come for free, and if you're going to give up a premium pick for one it might as well be a 23 year old that's still on his rookie deal.
And we can't ignore that there is a reason that NO wanted him gone despite all the talent and 2 relatively cheap years in their control. The kid shot his way out of town, after three 1100 yd seasons from a HOF QB in a pass happy offense.
BTW- even if these issues were true, I understand that it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be true here. Also "getting open" is why he's coming here. That's not what I meant. It's what he does after he gets the ball. He's going to get a lot of short passes in this offense. He'll need to make people miss to maximize his effectiveness. So go find me that clip.
I don't think "NO wanted him gone" is a fair characterization. If Michael Thomas hadn't emerged as a legit WR1, or if their defense wasn't godawful, or if they had more cap space, he'd probably still be there. But they didn't have enough cap space to really fix their defense (though they're certainly trying with the cap space they have), Michael Thomas has emerged as a WR1 in his own right, and their defense remains pretty bad. So they looked into their roster to see what they could do to get some assets to improve their defense some more--especially their secondary--and concluded that having two WR1s isn't really necessary when Brees is your quarterback. Having concluded that, they decided to keep the one that will be cheaper for longer, and trade the other one.
Despite having a HOF QB at the helm, they haven't finished above .500 since 2013. They just watched their division rivals play in the last two Super Bowls. They're making big moves because they have to, and in their situation it's the right thing to do. It's a decision that can be explained entirely in terms of roster-building, without any need to get into anyone shooting their way out of town or wanting to be gone or anything like that.
As for what he does after the catch and finding a clip of that, you really need to define what you're looking for, and have a clear idea of why that may or may not be included in a highlight reel. You're using YAC and making guys miss interchangeably, which, with a guy like Cooks, they're definitely not. Put on a highlight clip of Cooks, and you're guaranteed to see a ton of YAC. They just mostly come in the form of blowing past guys, and being so fast that he doesn't have to make them miss. What does he do after he gets the ball? He scores a lot of touchdowns.
If, OTOH, you're talking specifically about juking guys out, there's a bunch of answers to that. You mentioned some Saints fans complaining about his YAC, and that requires some context. This complaints mostly came about after the 2015 season, when he averaged 4.6 YAC per catch. That was more than Antonio Brown (4.3). It's a good number. It's not Edelman-high, but the reason for that has less to do with ability and more to do with the routes he's running and how he's being targeted. As a general rule, deeper receivers will have less YPC. The defense has more time to adjust to the ball and the player, you won't have blockers set up in front of you, etc. If you're making a contested catch downfield, you're not going to get any YAC. But that doesn't mean he's not elusive, any more than Antonio Brown is not elusive.
Put another way: in what you've watched are you seeing plays where he should have piled up YAC but was unable to? Because I'm sure not. What I'm seeing is a bunch of highlight reels featuring plays where juking someone out of his shoes was either a) not a possibility (on deep, contested catches) or b) where it would've just turned the 50 yard touchdowns he was getting into 20 yard first downs. Your criticism seems to have more to do with highlight reel play selection than with what they actually show about the player. The stuff on youtube isn't scouting tape, compiled to highlight the various strengths and weaknesses in a guy's game. They aren't trying to show a varied, nuanced take on his game. They're just showing the plays that made people jump out of their seats when they happened. Would you conclude that a WR is a bad blocker because his highlight reel doesn't highlight him blocking downfield? Of course not - for better or worse, highlight reels have a ton of selection bias in what they show, and when you have a player who's
really good at 40+ yard touchdowns where he sprints past everyone and high pointing deep balls, you can be certain that any highlight reel will feature a whole lot of that at the expense of everything else.
I'd challenge you to look at it this way: go watch a Saints game, any Saints game, and count the number of times that you think he should have made a guy miss and failed to. If he's coming down with a contested ball in traffic or taking it in for a touchdown, I don't see the point in complaining that he failed to juke a guy out. That's like complaining every time Brady hits Hogan for a 30 yard touchdown that he didn't move the chains with a 10 yard out instead.
For example, take this:
That's 7 minutes plus of Cooks highlights. It's mostly touchdowns, and on a lot of them he just takes the most direct path to the endzone and out-sprints everyone to get there. If he was running a 4.5 40 instead of a 4.3, maybe those would've turned into 20 yard gains where he made a guy miss instead, but I'm happy with (prefer, even) the 40 yard touchdown. The ones that aren't touchdowns are mostly deep throws that he has to come back to, and absorbs contact as he's making the catch or directly after. Nobody's getting YAC after that, except maybe Julio Jones.
But I still counted 6 or 7 instances where he did make a guy miss. Which, not coincidentally, were pretty much every time he was shown catching a ball within 5-10 yards of the LOS. Whenever he got the ball that close to the line, he did a good job getting YAC: he set up and read his blockers well, and he made unblocked defenders miss. The highlights don't feature him doing that a lot, but I think you're making a mistake in taking that to mean that he doesn't do it or can't do it. It's just not the kind of play that the guys putting together youtube highlight reels decide to feature.
If you want to get a more complete picture, you should probably do some combination of watching Saints games, look at scouting reels, and/or look at his measurables to verify that he has the raw physical traits to excel at agility and elusiveness (which he does). His elusiveness is pretty much always cited as one of the most dangerous parts of his game, and for good reason.
BUT...even if he turns out to be as good as you hope, we still face the issue that 2 seasons from now, is it going to be good enough to make this the FIRST WR to get top dollar in nearly 20 years of BB's tenure?
Moss got top dollar. So did Welker, on the franchise tag.
I think Malcolm Brown has been fine. When you are drafting in the 30's all you getting most years is the first choice of players with 2nd round grades. So if THAT guy winds up being a productive starter, it was a good pick. He doesn't have to be a star, though Brown can still get better. 2012 WAS a good draft. Jones and Collins aren't here, but we DID get good production from them while they were. Also I always count UDFA's as part of a draft class, and there is always at least one each year.
Yes, 2012 was a good draft. But those guys, except Hightower, are no longer here, which makes them no more relevant to the current cap structure and talent pipeline than the 2002 draft class.
