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Here are some facts I've picked up for reading various Cooks articles including the one in today's globe.
1. He's a proven deep threat. As ESPN Stats & Information also noted, Cooks had 18 catches last year on passes thrown at least 15 yards downfield– something no Patriots player had done since 2011. Among the deep balls he caught last year were a 98-yard touchdown against the Oakland Raiders and a 87-yard touchdown against the Carolina Panthers.
And that’s not to mention his season-long 71-yard score in 2015.
ESPN Stats & Info
✔@ESPNStatsInfo
75 receptions, 1,000 receiving yards, and 8 receiving TD in each of the last 2 seasons:
Brandin Cooks
Odell Beckham Jr.
Antonio Brown
2. His college production Junior Year was insane.
During his junior year in 2013, he had 128 receptions, 1,730 receiving yards, and 16 Tds. . The receptions and receiving yards were Pac-12 records. He was held to under 100 yards only four times and exceeded 200 yards in a game twice. He won the biletnikoff award that year for nations best wide receiver.
3. Blazing Speed:
Cooks not only terrorized defenses while at Oregon State, he also competed on the Oregon State Track team. He even competed in the Junior Olympics.
In 2012 with the Beavers, he set a personal-record 100-meter time of 10.72 seconds. And in 2014, his 4.33-second 40 yard dash time was the fastest in his draft class. He earned a second-place finish in the 60 meter dash at the 2012 UW Invitational, clocking a personal-best time of 6.81 seconds.
That speed has translated to the football field — even in full pads. Per NFL.com’s Next Gen Stats, Cooks eclipsed 22 miles per hour on the aforementioned 98-yard touchdown catch (and nearly did the same on the 87-yarder).
“If you can hit Cooks in stride, I don’t think there’s anybody that’s going to catch him,” Brees told The Times-Picayune last year
4. Cooks has a trademark celebration — but it’s complicated.
Cooks calls it "The Archer"
"It actually started from me being enamored with the show Arrow and then the movie The Hunger Games, and then when I was reading my Bible, I cam across the scripture€e Psalm 144:6 that says, “Send forth lightning and scatter the enemy; shoot your arrows and rout them.” So it just became one of those things to say to myself and remind me to stay humble through all of the success and gifts that I receive from Him."
Though Cooks had never been fined for the celebration, he has modified it slightly to comply with the league’s strictly enforced rules. While he still draws his imaginary arrow, he no longer shoots it (as doing such would be mimicking a violent act, according to the NFL, which is a no-no).
5. His path to the NFL was impressive
From the Globe:
For all Cooks has accomplished in the NFL, he had already overcome a number of obstacles to make it to the league.
As The Oregonian reported in 2013, Cooks’s father died of a heart attack when he was just 6-years-old. His mother subsequently had to take two jobs in order to put food on the table for her four sons.
“I needed rides to school, but I was embarrassed for people to see how small our house was,” Cooks said at the time. “One day, Fred [his oldest brother] sat me down and said the reasons we ate beans and bread so much, it’s because it’s all we could pay for. And that’s when it hit me.”
As the youngest in the family, Cooks watched as his three older brothers would struggle to cope with the loss of their father.
“The day after daddy died, it felt like everything went downhill,” he told The Oregonian.
Yet his brothers — two of whom became teenage fathers, and another who has been in and out of prison — urged their baby brother to learn from their mistakes. By all accounts, Cooks channeled an intense focus to excelling on the field.
“He wasn’t going to tell you how good he was going to be; he was going to show you,” Brian Gray, his high school coach, told Grantland in 2014. “But if you asked him, ‘Do you think you can do it?,’ he would tell you yes. And he would look you right in the eye.”
1. He's a proven deep threat. As ESPN Stats & Information also noted, Cooks had 18 catches last year on passes thrown at least 15 yards downfield– something no Patriots player had done since 2011. Among the deep balls he caught last year were a 98-yard touchdown against the Oakland Raiders and a 87-yard touchdown against the Carolina Panthers.
And that’s not to mention his season-long 71-yard score in 2015.
ESPN Stats & Info
✔@ESPNStatsInfo
75 receptions, 1,000 receiving yards, and 8 receiving TD in each of the last 2 seasons:
Brandin Cooks
Odell Beckham Jr.
Antonio Brown
2. His college production Junior Year was insane.
During his junior year in 2013, he had 128 receptions, 1,730 receiving yards, and 16 Tds. . The receptions and receiving yards were Pac-12 records. He was held to under 100 yards only four times and exceeded 200 yards in a game twice. He won the biletnikoff award that year for nations best wide receiver.
3. Blazing Speed:
Cooks not only terrorized defenses while at Oregon State, he also competed on the Oregon State Track team. He even competed in the Junior Olympics.
In 2012 with the Beavers, he set a personal-record 100-meter time of 10.72 seconds. And in 2014, his 4.33-second 40 yard dash time was the fastest in his draft class. He earned a second-place finish in the 60 meter dash at the 2012 UW Invitational, clocking a personal-best time of 6.81 seconds.
That speed has translated to the football field — even in full pads. Per NFL.com’s Next Gen Stats, Cooks eclipsed 22 miles per hour on the aforementioned 98-yard touchdown catch (and nearly did the same on the 87-yarder).
“If you can hit Cooks in stride, I don’t think there’s anybody that’s going to catch him,” Brees told The Times-Picayune last year
4. Cooks has a trademark celebration — but it’s complicated.
Cooks calls it "The Archer"
"It actually started from me being enamored with the show Arrow and then the movie The Hunger Games, and then when I was reading my Bible, I cam across the scripture€e Psalm 144:6 that says, “Send forth lightning and scatter the enemy; shoot your arrows and rout them.” So it just became one of those things to say to myself and remind me to stay humble through all of the success and gifts that I receive from Him."
Though Cooks had never been fined for the celebration, he has modified it slightly to comply with the league’s strictly enforced rules. While he still draws his imaginary arrow, he no longer shoots it (as doing such would be mimicking a violent act, according to the NFL, which is a no-no).
5. His path to the NFL was impressive
From the Globe:
For all Cooks has accomplished in the NFL, he had already overcome a number of obstacles to make it to the league.
As The Oregonian reported in 2013, Cooks’s father died of a heart attack when he was just 6-years-old. His mother subsequently had to take two jobs in order to put food on the table for her four sons.
“I needed rides to school, but I was embarrassed for people to see how small our house was,” Cooks said at the time. “One day, Fred [his oldest brother] sat me down and said the reasons we ate beans and bread so much, it’s because it’s all we could pay for. And that’s when it hit me.”
As the youngest in the family, Cooks watched as his three older brothers would struggle to cope with the loss of their father.
“The day after daddy died, it felt like everything went downhill,” he told The Oregonian.
Yet his brothers — two of whom became teenage fathers, and another who has been in and out of prison — urged their baby brother to learn from their mistakes. By all accounts, Cooks channeled an intense focus to excelling on the field.
“He wasn’t going to tell you how good he was going to be; he was going to show you,” Brian Gray, his high school coach, told Grantland in 2014. “But if you asked him, ‘Do you think you can do it?,’ he would tell you yes. And he would look you right in the eye.”