Wide receiver Brandin Cooks expressed his excitement about joining the “special place” that is the Dallas Cowboys a few weeks ago at his introductory press conference. On Tuesday, he doubled down on his feelings about teaming up with quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb in the Cowboys offense on “The Adam Schefter Podcast.”
Even though Cooks’ six career seasons of at least 1,000 receiving yards are tied for the third-most in the NFL since 2014, trailing only Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans (nine seasons) and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (seven), he went out of his way to declare there will be no battle with Lamb over who the team’s top wide receiver will be.
“CeeDee, you’re talking about a guy that’s been electric since the moment he stepped into this league but you look at last year what he did to really just go into that mode of a true No. 1 receiver,” Cooks said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for his game from afar and I hit him up and was like, ‘Look, I’m coming to just help.’ Like, there’s no ego. And same thing with [receiver] Michael Gallup. And then you talk about Dak, his competitive nature, the way that he goes about his work, you hear about it from teammates or ex-teammates, the way that he carries himself, I’m truly excited to be able to play with a guy who is hungry to get better.”
Cooks will be learning and developing a comfort with head coach Mike McCarthy’s playbook against two All-Pro cornerbacks every day in practice in Trevon Diggs and his former New England Patriots teammate Stephon Gilmore. Gilmore, like Cooks, also joined the Cowboys this offseason via trade after spending a year with the Indianapolis Colts. The reunion with Gilmore was years in the making as the two became close in their one season together in New England back in 2017. Their time together ended with the Patriots coming up just short in Super Bowl LII against the Philadelphia Eagles. Cooks said he “became like best friends” in New England with the 2019 Defensive Player of the Year.
“No exaggeration, we’ve probably talked every single day for the past three or four years,” Cooks said. “Every week at least, for sure. He’s somebody I’ve got a lot of respect for, that I run things by. But he got traded first and I was like, ‘Man, how do we make this happen?’ And then next thing you know we’re back on the same team together so I’m excited.”
Gilmore tweeted his excitement the day news broke that Cooks was becoming a Cowboy too. Now, the “Fambloski” is looking at houses in the same neighborhood.
“It’s just one of those things that was so surreal,” Cooks said. “We knew it was a possibility, but then the next thing you know we both get traded. He visits Dallas the week before me and then, you know, he meets me out there again to look at neighborhoods and we’re just looking at each other like, ‘Man, this is really real.’ Like we both were in a situation that obviously we hoped would have been different, but now we’re back to an incredible franchise.”
The veteran receiver sees Gilmore as someone who can still play at Pro Bowl-caliber level even as he turns 33 coming up in September. On top of his on-field impact, Cooks feels like Gilmore’s habits being observed by Diggs could help take the young corner’s game to another level.
“We [Cooks and Gilmore] like to talk about it like, ‘Just push play,'” Cooks said. “He’s still playing at the highest level but the guy is patient and he’s extremely smart. And his film study, it’s just one of those things where he has everything that you want from a corner and I think it’s going to be huge for him and Trevon Diggs to pair up together and for him to drop that knowledge on Diggs, because Diggs is already special but the knowledge that Steph has is really second to none that’s in the game right now, honestly.”
While Cooks’ presence takes pressure off of the Cowboys to draft a receiver early in the 2023 NFL Draft, he also impacted the top of this year’s draft as well. The Houston Texans would have secured the top overall pick if they had lost their regular-season finale at the Indianapolis Colts. Instead, they rallied from a late deficit to win 32-31, dropping Houston to the second overall pick. Cooks totaled a season-high 106 receiving yards and a touchdown on five catches in that contest. As a result, the Chicago Bears secured the top overall pick and flipped it to the quarterback-hungry Carolina Panthers, so now the Texans have to be content with the quarterback the Panthers don’t take between Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud and Alabama’s Bryce Young.
“Well, you never suit up to lose, right?” Cooks said. “And so you know that No. 1 pick is out there, but at the end of the day, you go out between those white lines you’re putting out your resume so as a competitor, you’re not going out there saying, ‘I’m not going to give them my all because I want the Texans to have the No. 1 pick’. You go out there, you give it your all and let the chips fall where they fall and they just happen to be one of those situations where it was a nail-bitter and most people were probably like, ‘Wait, why are you guys winning?’ We don’t play to lose, at least from a player’s standpoint.”
Cooks became a winner after that game in joining the Cowboys, who have won 12 games in each of the last two seasons, the first time the team has done so since their 1990s glory days when they won three Super Bowls in four seasons from 1992-1995. The 2023 season will be a major shift in expectations for Cooks after the Texans went 11-38-1 in his three seasons, giving Houston the NFL’s worst record over the last three years since 2020.
“I couldn’t be hungrier,” Cooks said on March 20. “The last three years, it is what it is. … Definitely fueling the fire and that hunger to come out here, just show up, and help my team win. I can’t wait. I truly can’t.”
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Author: Garrett Podell
April 7, 2023 | 1:40 pm
