Team needs vintage Cooks
New WR dealt with concussion issues last year
After being acquired in a trade with the Los Angeles Rams, Texans receiver Brandin Cooks will have to stay healthy and rebound from the worst season of his career if he is going to help replace DeAndre Hopkins.
Playing with quarterback Deshaun Watson, Cooks is convinced he’ll put up the kind of numbers he produced from 2015-18, when he averaged 77 catches for 1,149 yards (14.9 average) and seven touchdowns.
Cooks vows to avoid a repeat of 2019, when he dealt with concussion issues and caught 42 passes, the fewest of his career. He also had a career-low two touchdown catches.
“That definitely is not the trend you should be looking for from me as a player,” Cooks said Thursday on a Zoom conference call. “I dealt with some things on the field, but that doesn’t show what type of player I am, the production I’ve been putting in year in and year out since I’ve been in the league.
“That was just one of those off years, but it comes with the game.”
In 2018, his first season with the Rams, who traded a first-round pick to New England for Cooks, he signed a five-year contract worth $81 million. He rewarded their faith in him by catching 80 passes for 1,204 yards and five touchdowns, helping them reach Super Bowl LIII, where they lost to New England.
The Rams soured on Cooks last season and let teams know he was available in a trade. The Texans
got Cooks and a 2022 fourthround pick for a second-round selection in last week’s draft that the Rams used on Florida receiver Van Jefferson.
Despite the concussions, Cooks missed only two games last season.
“As far as the concussions, I’m doing great, and I look forward to playing football,” he said.
Cooks is in Houston because the Texans needed to find an experienced receiver to help replace Hopkins, who was sent to Arizona in the controversial trade made by Bill O’Brien.
Cooks is expected to replace Hopkins as the starter opposite Will Fuller.
“As far as specifics of being brought in for a guy like DeAndre Hopkins, I wouldn’t necessarily say that,” Cooks said. “You’re talking about a great player that’s played a lot of great football in his years as a Texan.
“I’m looking at it from the standpoint of come in and help the team win as best as I can.”
With Cooks and Fuller outside, Randall Cobb inside and Kenny
Stills coming off the bench, the Texans have talent, experience and speed. But their receivers have never produced like Hopkins or stayed healthy like Hopkins.
Under the restrictions created by the novel coronavirus pandemic, Cooks has been communicating online with his new teammates as much as possible and is participating in the team’s virtual offseason program.
Cooks (5-10, 183) is a seven-year veteran who doesn’t turn 27 until September. He can’t wait for the restrictions to be lifted so he can return to the field. When he’s finally on the field, Cooks will give the Texans three receivers who ran in the 4.3s at their combine. He ran 4.33, Fuller 4.32 and Stills 4.38.
“You’ve got guys that are able to blow the top off (the defense) from every single position in this offense,” Cooks said.
This was the fourth time Cooks has been traded. New Orleans shipped him to New England for a first-round pick the Saints used on offensive tackle Ryan Ramczyk.
After Cooks helped New England reach Super Bowl LVII after the 2017 season, the Patriots didn’t want to pay him and sent him to the Rams for a first-round selection.
Cooks has proved he’s able to adjust easily to new surroundings. With the Texans, he’ll benefit from his relationship with Jack Easterby, the team’s executive vice president of football operations.
Cooks and Easterby became friends when he played for New England.
“I can’t say enough about a guy like Jack Easterby and what he’s meant to me and my life just in that one year I got to know him,” Cooks said. “He’s a special human being not just for me, but for my family, and to be reunited is definitely a blessing.
“I look forward to it because you talk about a guy that holds you accountable at a high standard. Those are the type of guys you want to be able to work with.”
Watson is Cooks’ fourth starting quarterback after Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Jared Goff.
“I’ve been blessed to play with such special quarterbacks,” he said. “I look forward to just sharing that knowledge I’ve learned from them.
“As far as gaining that chemistry with a new quarterback, I think that’s coming with throwing, whenever we can get together and throw. From this time when we’re doing Zoom meetings, asking Deshaun what he’s looking for, what does he like to see from his receivers, what is he seeing in this defense and the way that he likes to throw things.”
Cooks has seen Watson make some incredible plays on the way to a fourth AFC South title in five years.
“You look at a guy like Deshaun, just watching him from a distance and now watching film on him, the guy can throw every single ball,” Cooks said. “He throws the deep ball so great. He’s able to throw on the run and on the move.
“There’s a lot you look at and you’re like, ‘OK, what can this guy not do?’ You can’t answer that because he makes every single throw.”
And the Texans are counting on Watson to throw a lot of passes to Cooks to help an offense that traded one of the most prolific weapons in the NFL.