Expectations were high for the Los Angeles Rams last season – as is the case for every team that makes it to the Super Bowl the year prior. With their sights set on getting back to the big game, Sean McVay’s squad came up well short of that goal, failing to even make the playoffs.
There was a lot that went wrong in L.A., particularly on offense. Jared Goff regressed, Todd Gurley’s numbers were underwhelming, the offensive line was a mess and Brandin Cooks endured the worst season of his career since he was a rookie.
Some of those struggles were out of Cooks’ control, considering he suffered two concussions and was only targeted 72 times – down from his career average of 109 per season. The result was a stat line of 42 catches for 583 yards and two touchdowns, all of which were either the fewest or second-fewest of his career. His average of 3.0 receptions per game was by far the worst he’s ever posted, too.
He’s been in the gym working out this offseason and is coming back hungrier than he ever has in the NFL.
“For me, I have that feeling like somebody took something away from me,” Cooks told Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire. “It’s something that’s so important, you want to do whatever it takes to get back to where you were, and better. For us as a team, you look at the fact that the year before, we went to the Super Bowl, and last year, we went through a lot of ups and downs. Personally, I just want to be the best I can possibly be to help my team get out of some of those situations. I feel like I truly am more hungry — like that hunger I had before I made it into the league. That fight and that want and that desire from my childhood has risen back to the surface after what went on last year.”
After the season ended, there was a consensus among players and coaches on what went wrong for the Rams in 2019. Wade Phillips mentioned it, Sean McVay pointed it out, as did Jared Goff and several other players: consistency.
The Rams would go from looking like a Super Bowl contender one week to being unable to score more than 20 points for weeks at a time. Cooks also noticed how inconsistent the Rams were, which he says they need to fix in 2020.
“It was one of those things where, how to we find the way to get back to our consistent play? There were too many inconsistencies last year,” he said. “We’d show why we are one of the best teams in the league, and then, the next week, we’d show why we shouldn’t be playing in the playoffs. We know it’s there, but how consistent can we be? That’s the biggest thing.”
The Rams have the talent to beat any team in the NFL, but games aren’t played on paper. They have to put it all together as a team, which they didn’t do enough last season.