CALABASAS, Calif. — The 2019 season was not optimal for the Los Angeles Rams, or for receiver Brandin Cooks. The Rams went in one season from a 13-3 mark, the second seed in the NFC, and a trip to the Super Bowl to a 9-7 record, no playoffs at all, and a lot of questions about the franchise’s competitive future.
Similarly, Cooks, who signed a five year, $81 million contract extension with the Rams in July, 2018, saw his production drop from 80 catches for 1,204 yards and five touchdowns in 2018 to 42 catches for 583 yards and two touchdowns. Not that it was all Cooks’ fault — the offensive line was very much in flux, the run game fell apart, defenses seemed to figure out Los Angeles’ high-powered passing game to a point, and quarterback Jared Goff, on the heels of his own massive deal, saw his efficiency and consistency take a drop.
Cooks also missed time with two separate concussions, and his total snaps fell from 1,195 to 702. With all that in mind, Cooks spent early February in trainer Travelle Gaines’ Athletic Gaines gym, trying to get it all back. I spoke with him after a workout that left him short of breath — and would have likely put me in the hospital.
“It’s so early in the offseason, we’re just building an energy system — a lot of quick movement and pacing. Getting the tissue tolerance back up before I really start hitting it hard again on the field in about a month.”
This is Cooks’ first season with Gaines, a connection that came through an old friend from Gaines’ Oregon State days — receiver James Rodgers.
“James had trained with Travelle, and James and I are really close. James is kind of my mentor off the field when it comes to football and route-running. I told him that I’m staying here in L.A. because we’re building our place in Portland, and does he know anyone? It just clicked from there. You talk about a guy who truly cares about his craft when he comes in here… he’s going to continue to work. Even when we talk outside of here, just talking about how we can get better, life and stuff like that — just having those conversations like that. It’s beyond football.”
When minicamps start and the new season gets rolling, Cooks says, he’ll come to it with a different kind of hunger, based on everything going wrong in 2019.
“For me, I have that feeling like somebody took something away from me. 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 to the surface after what went on last year.”
And for those who don’t believe that the Rams have what it takes to reclaim the NFC West title, Cooks wants to make it very clear — he thinks his team has the quarterback, and the mindset, to do just that.
Absolutely. Yes, he is the guy,” Cooks said of Goff when I raised that question. “I mean, you talk about a guy that… we had so many different position changes along the offensive line last year. And for any quarterback, that is so tough. To still be able to stand in there and take the licks, it goes to show you that this guy is willing to do whatever it takes to win for his team. And at that young an age, when you have that mindset, special things happen.”
Cooks believes that everything will be fine as long as the Rams’ offense plays within itself.
“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. 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.”
It’s a nice thought, but the jury is still out. Los Angeles fell from second to 16th in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted offensive efficiency metrics, the defense is in serious transition after the team decided against extending the contract of defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, and the 2020 cap hits for the four top-paid players — Goff, defensive tackle Aaron Donald, running back Todd Gurley, and Cooks — total out at over $95 million. Not a lot of room for a rebuild, especially with the need to extend cornerback Jalen Ramsey with his own mega-deal.
If Cooks can regain the spark of his 2018 season, that would certainly help. When I asked him for the plays that have defined his performance over the last couple of seasons, both plays came from 2018. First, his 47-yard touchdown against the Vikings in Week 4, which was a footrace against cornerback Trae Waynes — which Waynes most definitely lost.
“The Minnesota game two years ago — not this past season, but the year before. It was a straight post route from the slot, Jared throws a perfect ball, and I ran underneath that thing, tracked it, and [it was a] touchdown to tie the game.”
Then, this 36-yard catch against the Saints in the NFC Championship game, which took the ball to the New Orleans 6-yard line, set it up for a Gurley touchdown, and put the Rams back in the game when it had been a 13-3 deficit. The move Cooks put on defensive back P.J. Williams from the inside of a stack release was just plain nasty.
“Left side, wide-and-go. Crunchtime situation before the half, Jared with another beautiful ball, catch at the goal line to help us bring that momentum to come back in the second half. That turned the game around.”
All this talk about momentum and turning things around? That’s Cook’s mindset at this point, and if it doesn’t happen in 2020, it certainly won’t be for lack of preparation on his part.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”