Brandin Cooks is a starting wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. Cooks played college football at Oregon State, where he broke out as an 18-year-old sophomore with 67 catches, 1,151 receiving yards, and five touchdowns. He blew up in 2013, putting up 128 catches for an FBS-leading 1,730 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns. He also earned the Fred Biletnikoff award, given to college football’s best wide receiver. All of that production earned him a 38.9-percent (79th-percentile) College Dominator Rating. He then shredded the NFL Combine with a 4.33 (98th-percentile) 40-time, a 10.57 (98th-percentile) Agility Score, and a 10.18 (85th-percentile) Catch Radius,. The New Orleans Saints traded up seven spots to make him the No. 20 overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft.
At 20 years and 343 days old, Cooks became the youngest player in league history to score a touchdown when he found the endzone against the Atlanta Falcons. He found himself in his second and third NFL seasons (2015-2016), going over 1,000 receiving yards in each and scoring nine and eight touchdowns, respectively. Following his third season, New England traded for Cooks and picked up the fifth-year option on his contract. In his only season with Tom Brady and the Patriots, he again went over 1,000 yards receiving and made it to Super Bowl LII, where he left the eventual 41-33 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles with a concussion. The Los Angeles Rams traded for Cooks on April 3, 2018, and signed him to a five-year, $81 million extension. That deal included a $7 million signing bonus, $49.5 million guaranteed, and a $16.2 million average annual salary.
In 2018, his first season in LA, Cooks dispelled any notions that he spent his pro career being propped up by elite quarterbacks. He again put up over 1,000 yards and helped propel Jared Goff to a career-best season, one that ended with a 13-3 loss in Super Bowl LII to the New England Patriots. A concussion-marred 2019 season led to the Rams trading Cooks to the Houston Texans on April 10, 2020. That year, he joined Brandon Marshall as the only players to record 1,000-yard receiving seasons with four different teams. He settled back into his familiar fantasy WR2 range, averaging 15.5 (No. 17) fantasy points per game.
Despite the fact that Houston started third-round rookie Davis Mills at quarterback for a majority of the season, it was business as usual for Cooks. On an 84.1-percent Snap Share and 478 (No. 30) Routes Run, he logged a 38.1-percent (No. 7) Air Yards Share to go along with 23 (No. 14) Deep Targets, a 26.9-percent (No. 10) Target Share, and 14.5 (No. 21) fantasy points per game. In March of 2023, Cooks was acquired from the Texans for a fifth round pick in 2023 and a sixth round pick in 2024.
