Many Patriots fans and football folks have been saying since October that Brandin Cooks “is a bust” and that he sucks, and Ben Volin even suggested that the Patriots cut him completely. These are the same people who compared Cooks to Randy freaking Moss the moment the Patriots traded for the 24-year-old receiver.
Unfortunately, Cooks was bound for disappointment in 2017-18 because Patriots fans literally labeled him the next Moss before he even got on his flight to Boston. Randy Moss is the single-most athletic wide receiver the game of football has ever seen; it made me cringe when fans, without hesitation, gave the player such absurd hurdles to jump through from the very beginning. It’s no wonder the same fans hate Cooks and think he’s a bust are the ones who expected him to become the greatest wide receiver in NFL history in one season.
Although, these same people tend to forget that only three receivers under the Bill Belichick-coached Patriots have ever surpassed the 1,000 yard mark in their first season with the team. Who are those three nice fellas, you may ask? They’re Randy Moss (1,493, 2007), Wes Welker (1,175, 2007) and Brandin Cooks (1,082, 2017).
People list “a lack of physicality” as a cause for their personal disdain for Cooks. Okay, I understand that. More often than not, I found myself yelling at him at my poor television to fight for the damn ball and to run a little bit faster. Then again, think about it: when Belichick traded for Cooks, Julian Edelman and Malcolm Mitchell were all apart of this past season’s plans. The Patriots were going to have a vertical, downfield offense and burn every opponent’s secondaries like nobody’s business all season long. Then, Edelman tore his ACL, Mitchell didn’t play a snap the entire season, Chris Hogan was out for most of the second half of the year and Danny Amendola had a snap restriction for most of the regular season. Cooks’ role was originally supposed to be completely different from what it turned out to be in the end and what he was so accustomed to in his time in New Orleans.
It certainly didn’t help when Tom Brady suffered both an Achilles and hand injury around mid-season, both of which lingered the rest of the way into February. With the entire receiving corps decimated by injuries and filled with randoms to replace them, an injured QB and a sporadic gameplan seemingly every Sunday, it’s no wonder Cooks didn’t succeed the way he was supposed to, especially down the stretch. People claim that he “disappeared” in the final weeks of the regular season. Technically, he did. Was it entirely his fault? No. His entire offense got beaten and battered, leaving him the only defendable receiver on the field just about every snap. He was going to get the clamps put on him, and even if he didn’t, having an injured MVP QB didn’t help the kid’s cause, either.
While Amendola was the star of the AFC Championship Game against Jacksonville, Cooks’ performance is typically thrown under the radar. Without him, they don’t win that game, honest to God. Cooks racked up 100 yards on six catches and drew 68 yards worth of pass interference penalties. He utterly embarrassed Jalen Ramsey for the entirety of the game; that was one of my favorite Patriots moments all season long, watching an regular season underachiever have the game of his life and shutting up a mouthy, cocky SOB like Ramsey is.
As for his contract, as I mentioned earlier, a certain Patriots writer believes the team should go ahead and release him. I still haven’t stopped laughing hysterically over that, for the record. Anywho, to simply cut a guy in which you spent a first-round pick on would be absolutely absurd. Just because the offense technically succeeded without him at his best doesn’t mean they’re better off without the player.
To cut a player of his caliber with such potential would be a sin. Maybe he isn’t worth the $8.5 million he’s set to earn in 2018-19, sure. That can be adjusted if the team extends him, thus changing his upcoming cap hit. Then again, an $8.5 million hit for a player like Cooks in this day and age isn’t unheard of. I think it’s fairly reasonable, in fact. The team will surely at least attempt the vertical offense again with a healthy receiving corps next time around and give Cooks a better chance to prove himself.
The moral of the story is, before you jump on the bandwagon and start calling Brandin Cooks a bust after one season in which the collective team wasn’t at their healthiest, think about it a little bit. Look back at some film, think back and look a little bit deeper in regards to the reasons why Cooks may have had a “down” season with his new team. He’s such a competitive and hungry kid who I believe fits really well in that Patriots locker room and meshes well with the rest of the offense. All we are saying, is give Cooks a chance.
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