Cowboys’ Brandin Cooks having successful season despite near-career-low stats

From @ToddBrock24f7: At his current rate, Cooks will max out at around 50 catches and 700 yards. He’s making an impact when the ball is thrown to him, though.

Brandin Cooks was supposed to be the key to fully unlocking a Cowboys passing attack in 2023.

And while quarterback Dak Prescott is having a year worthy of legitimate MVP talk, and fellow receiver CeeDee Lamb has already set personal bests and is within reach of single-season franchise records, the veteran has not seen the same kind of statistical success.

Even with two games to go, Cooks is on track for one of his worst seasons in terms of targets, receptions, and yards. He’s racked up 1,000-yard receiving seasons for four previous teams, but in his first year as a Cowboy, Cooks will be hard-pressed to crack 700. And after notching four previous campaigns of 80 or more catches, his current pace may not get him to 50.

And yet, the 30-year-old has come through in the clutch more often than not. He ranks second on the team in receiving touchdowns- six- and is a constant scoring threat, as he showed last Sunday with a brilliant go-ahead end zone grab in the fourth quarter in Miami.

“You practice it so much, right?” Cooks said afterward of the throw and catch. “You trust one another. Dak was doing his thing, and then trusted me on that throw. And I just wanted to be able to be there and make a play for my team.”

By and large, Cooks has done that all season long. Pro Football Reference tracks something called “Receiving Success Rate,” which defines a successful catch as one which gains at least 40% of the yards required on first down, 60% of the yards required on second down, and converts third and fourth downs.

Using that metric, Cooks has a 58.5% success rate. That’s less than three percentage points off his career best and currently within the league’s top 30. It’s higher than Puka Nacua, Sam LaPorta, A.J. Brown, Mike Evans, Christian McCaffrey, DeVonta Smith, DK Metcalf, Stefon Diggs, Deebo Samuel, and Amari Cooper- some of the most reliable chain-movers in today’s NFL.

None of this is to say that Cooks should be stealing targets from Lamb. Lamb is unequivocally having a monster season, and he just happens to rank 16th among all qualified players in Receiving Success Rate.

Cooks is, however, doing exactly what was hired to do when the ball is thrown to him. It could be argued the ball should be thrown to him more. He’s too good- still- to become the offense’s forgotten man.

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But the journeyman has preached patience ever since arriving in Dallas. That’s how he approaches his entire game, not to mention the inevitable lulls in production when the game plan moves away from him.

So the answers he gave this week regarding the Cowboys’ current two-game skid could just as easily stand in as a mantra for now personally weathering a new role in a high-powered offense that is leaving him on the short end of his usual stats.

“You stomach it by learning from it, right? You look deep in, you look at yourself, you look at what you can do better individually, as a group. And you’re not shy about it: you go to practice, and you go to work, and you fix those things. That’s how you stomach it, by learning from it.”

Doing so will put Dallas back in the win column. Hopefully it also adds to the numbers of a veteran and locker room leader who deserves more praise than his modest stats might suggest.

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