Getting to know Brandin Cooks

[NG Pats Fan]

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.”

 

[Tony2046]

Just ran into this. It's a nice highlight vid of him.

 

[Ivan]

He's a freak.

 

[NYCPatsFan]

Wow!! What an intro!

Thanks a ton for this great background.

The following section triggered multiple reactions in me. It made me:

- wince @ the hard life of such unfortunate kids in this rich country of ours,
- be grateful that I was - and still am - lucky to have a stable and carefree life, and
- admire him for his focus and success against all these obstacles.

----------------
"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.”....“The day after daddy died, it felt like everything went downhill,” he told The Oregonian."

----------------

I was hoping that he does well with us, especially against one criticism by some that he did most of his stunning runs indoor and so can't mimic it outdoors.

After reading this, I am pretty confident that he will.

GO PATS!!

 

[manxman2601]

I found this fairly interesting. Advanced stats on the potential Brady-Cooks combination.

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

Another aspect of Cooks that bodes well, having mentors to teach huim..

The Big Promise of Brandin Cooks

>>>When Cooks was a high school sophomore, he met Phil Ruhl, then a junior on the football team. The two quickly bonded over weightlifting and an appreciation for each other’s dedication. Not long into their friendship, Ruhl invited Cooks to his family’s home. “I was like, ‘Goddamn,’” Cooks says. “I was sitting there, just soaking it all in.” Ruhl’s mother is Alexis Ruhl, formerly Alexis Spanos — that Spanos. Her father, Alex, is the real estate mogul who owns the San Diego Chargers, and her husband, Barry, has had his own professional real estate success.

The Ruhls became a second family for Cooks; even when Mrs. Ruhl opposed other overnight guests, Brandin was always welcome. He spent weekends at the family’s home near Lake Tahoe. On the Ruhls’ kitchen counter, there are six senior photos — of her five children and Brandin.

Emotional support was one thing, but the education Cooks received from his time with the Ruhls was another. There was talk of politics, finance, investments. It was a world he hadn’t been exposed to before. Cooks went with Mr. Ruhl when he leased a car, just so he could learn. He asked about real estate decisions, how to surround yourself with a team whose knowledge could buttress your own.

Cook can recite the signing bonus for DeAndre Hopkins, one of last year’s first-round receivers, and also how much of that check goes to the government, how much he’ll have left over, how much should go this way and that. “It’s one of those things,” Cooks says, “short-term greed, long-term wealth.” He attributes it all to his time around the Ruhls. “They were just teaching me those things I never was exposed to growing up.”<<<<<

 

[K. Dog]

I'm doubtful a long threat is going to be as useful at Brady's age as it was in '07; seems more like an invitation for turnovers. His long balls seemed to have more arc and less speed than they did in '07. That's my sense maybe I'm off. Obviously his timing and mid-range to short-range passes are perhaps better in some ways than '07.

What worries me about Cooks resume is that it sounds like a resume that any other team would want. We usually do better seeing things other teams don't see or understand in our receivers.

 

[Bourne Again Christian]

Randy Moss and Donte Stallworth say hi

 

[Biffins]

I'm doubtful a long threat is going to be as useful at Brady's age as it was in '07; seems more like an invitation for turnovers. His long balls seemed to have more arc and less speed than they did in '07. That's my sense maybe I'm off. Obviously his timing and mid-range to short-range passes are perhaps better in some ways than '07.

What worries me about Cooks resume is that it sounds like a resume that any other team would want. We usually do better seeing things other teams don't see or understand in our receivers.

Brady mentioned in an interview that he only realized later in his career how receivers liked receiving the ball coming down from above on the long balls, and he used to zip it to them before on flat throws but has realized he needed to arc it to drop it in comfortably. He said this has increased the ability of the receivers to complete these long balls and increased his downfield percentage.

So the arc you speak of, is deliberate. Maybe someone can post that interview.

 

[PF_SU]

17 minute highlight video.

 

[Marqui]

I wonder if they're going to make him run KRs. He doesn't seem to have done STs much before, but this is NE.

 

[Deflatemyballs]

I'm doubtful a long threat is going to be as useful at Brady's age as it was in '07; seems more like an invitation for turnovers. His long balls seemed to have more arc and less speed than they did in '07. That's my sense maybe I'm off. Obviously his timing and mid-range to short-range passes are perhaps better in some ways than '07.

What worries me about Cooks resume is that it sounds like a resume that any other team would want. We usually do better seeing things other teams don't see or understand in our receivers.

Chris Hogan's 18 ypc disagree

 

[Marqui]

Chris Hogan's 18 ypc disagree

And Gronk's 21 ypc.

 

[Deflatemyballs]

And Gronk's 21 ypc.

Seriously what a **** take that was

 

[K. Dog]

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.

 

[grandpajim]

Watching the Cook's highlights two things jumped out to me,
1-Brees seemed all alone in the backfield most times not like Tommy with plenty of company from the other team
2-Cook seemed to have to slow down, fully past coverage, waiting for Brees pass, & the defenders, to catch up to him
Hope he's able to buy into the "team first, spread the ball around" mentality - Tom's got to be loving this addition

 

[pdangle]

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.

This is assuming traits X are not in any way (or not as) useful to NEP. If X is valuable for all successful NFL receivers, then teams want the highest X traits no matter what Y (on their team) may be. And even if Y makes up some small intangible part of XXX+Y, NEP and all NFL teams still want Arg Max (X's). Of which Cooks has already demonstrated he possesses some serious close to max X of such NFL WR skills.

In other words I'd rather have the guy like Cooks

XXXXXXXX(y?)

than 4th tier receiver

xxxxxxxxxx(Y?)

That's like saying NE should pick up only FA WR jags because it's less likely they won't be as bad on NE, because here, some intangible Y trait will flourish, now theoretically unconstrained by those other league desired X traits getting in the way, making everyone wonder "why didn't we sign the beast?"

Now if you just said we should expect some regression to the mean, I might agree with that.

 

[NG Pats Fan]

What worries me about Cooks resume is that it sounds like a resume that any other team would want. We usually do better seeing things other teams don't see or understand in our receivers.

Come on man, this logic is awful

 

[Ochmed Jones]

I really wonder how bb will use him. In New Orleans he ran a limited route tree. But I think that was the saints coaching staff trying to keep him from taking extra hits.

Clearly his speed should mean defenses have to double cover him by having a safety over the top, yet when watching tape of games against the nfc south foes, rarely do you see them double him.

But I can imagine Brady will be licking his chops if he sees single coverage on the outside against cooks.

Ideally our offense should have a lot more quick strike to it with cooks, hogan and gronkowski all working downfield.

Now we need a beastly running back because we will see a ton of defenses with only six in the box.

 

[Bourne Again Christian]

Blount