Tale of the Tape: NFL Week 1
The first Sunday of NFL football is behind us, which means we finally have film of 2014 NFL teams to watch and evaluate as we prepare for Weeks 2 and beyond of the fantasy football season.
Week 1 brought plenty of surprises in terms of team results, and quite a few odd stat lines as well. But rather than taking these stat lines at face value, let’s consider what actually happened on the field and see if there are any lessons to be learned about this week’s surprising performances.
One of the more surprising players of Week 1 was Saints rookie wide receiver Brandin Cooks, who finished the game with 7 catches for 77 yards and a touchdown, along with one carry for 18 yards. His eight touches were the most of any Saints receiver, and third-most on the team behind Mark Ingram and Pierre Thomas.
He saw 8 of the 37 targeted passes thrown by Drew Brees, second-most on the team. But unlike many of the projections and predictions we heard this summer, they weren’t just “Darren Sproles” targets.
There was a common train of thought that Cooks would be used on screens and out of the backfield like Sproles, but those thoughts were put to rest very quickly, as on the second play of the game Cooks ran right up the seam, challenged the safety, and settled in for a big gain.
Cooks has blazing speed, and the Falcons safety knows that. His job on this play is to stay “deeper than the deepest” which means giving Cooks a cushion and not allowing him to get a step and burn him deep.
But thanks to his teammates biting on a play action, he’s the only defender near Cooks when he reaches the top of his route and breaks outside, giving the Oregon State product plenty of room to make his first NFL catch.
The late-arriving corner puts a good hit on Cooks, who holds on after making a picture-perfect “hands” catch, attacking the ball rather than letting it come to him.
On this particular play, Cooks was lined up in the slot. It was his first play on the field as a New Orleans Saint, having sat out the first play of the game in favor of Marques Colston, Joseph Morgan, two tight ends and a running back.
He was brought on for the second play, which featured a slot receiver (as both wideouts were on the same side), indicating Cooks’ preferred role with New Orleans as an inside receiver.
However, he wasn’t only used in the slot. The Saints specifically designed plays for him that moved him all over the field, and that’s the most encouraging part of the film on Cooks from Week 1.
His second catch of the game was out of the backfield, as both he and Pierre Thomas lined up on either side of Drew Brees in the shotgun. The Falcons were running a very symmetrical defense, and since Cooks was on the side of the field with as many blockers as defenders (there was a potentially unblocked linebacker waiting for Thomas on the other side), he got the quick pass from Brees and ran for a short gain.
At the start of the second quarter, the Saints sent Cooks out in a tight alignment as the only receiver to the strong side of the formation. The blocking and running back movement make the play look like a run to the strong side, but Cooks is coming in for an end-around, which he takes for a nice gain.
And on his first career touchdown, he was lined up as the widest receiver in a trips (three wide receivers on one side) formation, and the play was perfectly orchestrated to get Cooks open and to find the end zone.
Marques Colston is the inside receiver of the trio to the left of Drew Brees, and he’ll simply clear out his defender by running straight up the field. The defensive back he’s lined up against will never look back as he tracks Colston’s run into the end zone.
Robert Meachem is the middle man of the receivers, and his role on this play is to create havoc among the defensive backs and force them to switch off or otherwise adjust by crossing in front of Cooks. The Falcons tipped their hand by lining up their defensive backs directly across from the New Orleans receivers, so man coverage is painfully obvious.
As you can see in the image above, the Falcons had to account for the crossing/rub action between Cooks and Meachem, and as you’ll see in the image below, they did not.
Meachem’s defender is following him to the outside, with his back to the play, while Cooks’ defender is trying to juke out Meachem, who doesn’t even come into contact with the defender as he side steps to avoid a penalty. This gives Cooks a wide-open lane to the end zone.
The lane to paydirt is especially wide open because the Falcons shaded their only safety to the side of the field where Jimmy Graham was lurking. Which brings us to the ultimate upside and downside of Brandin Cooks moving forward this season.
Jimmy Graham, Marques Colston, Pierre Thomas and an eventually healthy Kenny Stills are all going to see their fair share of looks in the passing game. The threat of all of these players will get Cooks open and allow him space to flourish, but they will also take away from his overall volume as Drew Brees spreads the ball around.
So despite doing everything right in his first NFL game, Cooks may have had his best game as a rookie right out of the gate. The fact that he had multiple plays seemingly designed for him is encouraging, but don’t expect the Saints to force-feed him the ball moving forward.
In other words, he’s now officially a “Saints receiver not named Jimmy Graham”, and as such is very unpredictable, but more than capable of having a game-changing day for both New Orleans and your daily fantasy lineups.