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I heard a Saints guy critique Cooks as a speed guy with good hands, a very good WR. But the Saints tried him with bubble screens and jet sweeps and Cooks just doesn't have elusiveness to do it. Thats not his game. He said Cooks has no wiggle to his game and that he can't do what Tavon Austin can do in that regard. Cooks also is not a contested ball guy. What Cooks is is a speed guy who can take the top off a defense and that really wasn't the best fit in N.O. The Saints guy said Brees doesn't have a strong enough arm to take advantage of Cooks strength.
So we shouldn't expect to see Cooks do well with jet sweeps or screens, according to the Saints guy.
I dunno. Cooks may or may not be good at jet sweeps and reverses. But wiggle probably isn't the issue either way. Tavon didn't have any wiggle either. That wasn't Tavon's game. Near as I can tell, what you need to do this is just speed, really.
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Maybe. I dunno either. I'm just relaying what a beat reporter in N.O. said about Cooks. The Tavon stuff was just a wild shot by him, IMO.
He was close to Cooks tenure with Saints and made some interesting points about why the Saints traded him and was emphasizing that it really didn't have to do with personality issues, it was about fit. It was about Brees not being able to throw deep very well and the old short QB needs a big WR thing. He did say that when the Saints drafted Cooks (at least the Saints fans and reporters) they thought Cooks would be giving them a lot of production with bubble screens but that didn't pan out cause Cooks wasn't good at it.
My view is that Cooks is a good fit for McVay and Goff. And this is probably the best place for Cooks, even better than N.E. The reports were that the Pats wanted Cooks to grow with Garoppolo but when JG was traded Cooks wasn't as important as bolstering OL for Brady. Essentially thats what the Pats did. They used the pick they got for Cooks and drafted an OL that they said they want to play LT to replace Solder. Turns out they they gave up a very good OT when they traded for Cooks. The Saints used that pick on OT Ramczyk who looked great as a rookie last year.
I watched a lot of Cooks and I really don't see elusiveness, I see raw speed, a guy who accelerates past defenders in space. He runs nice routes and has nice hands, so he's more than just a one trick pony, and McVay will create stuff for him, but I doubt it will be in the backfield.
