Brandin Cooks’ fit with the New England Patriots

The Patriots have been one of the best teams in the NFL over the last decade. While they lost LeGarrette Blount and Martellus Bennett, they also traded for Brandin Cooks using their 2017 first and third round picks. Cooks is the definition of a deep, vertical threat. His blazing speed, subtle route-running, and confident receiving abilities will make him an instant upgrade to the Patriots receiving corp. For this video, I tracked each of his 117 targets from his 2016 season and charted them based on his skill-set and routes he ran for the Saints.

Overall he does a fantastic job against off-man defenders and really any time he has a clean release. If the defense is using press coverage, he can get pushed off his route by their jams. In order to solve this, the Patriots need to use him in stacked formations or simply off the line of scrimmage.