Why Jared Cook Looks Overvalued for 2019

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You're Betting Off (Jared) Cooking with Different Ingredients

On the heels of a big 2018 breakout, Jared Cook now takes his talents to New Orleans, his fifth team over 11 NFL seasons. On the surface, Cook’s fantasy prospects look bright and strong as he upgrades massively at quarterback. Drew Brees remains one of football’s most efficient passers, and last year the Saints offense produced 13 more points per game than Cook’s Raiders.

Still, for every pro-Cook narrative, there’s a red flag or two. Cook underwhelmed for nine seasons before erupting last year in a timid Raiders offense that relied heavily on short passing. And even though his new passer has rewritten the NFL’s book on efficiency, there’s not nearly as much passing volume in New Orleans as there once was. Entering a run-rooted offense with several better mouths to feed, Cook may be staring down a disappointing 2019 follow-up. The tight end position is sparse and volatile in fantasy, but it’s hard to see much upside in his seventh-round ADP. There’s simply better upside (and similar floors) in a handful of later names.

A TRUE BREAKOUT...THEN A MASSIVE SHIFT

Cook finished 2018 as the Raiders’ top producer in the passing game. His 68 receptions tied for the team lead and his 896 yards led the pack, thanks to an 18.2% target share that landed among the league’s highest at tight end. Prior to that explosion, though, Cook had never been an elite producer for anyone. He’d never topped 54 catches in a season, and he hadn’t broken the 700-yard barrier since 2011.

In Oakland, Cook feasted in a passing game that lacked (a) downfield talent and (b) the desire to stick in the pocket and test defenses beyond the short seams. It was little surprise to see the tight end spot targeted so heavily in such a bare-bones attack. In New Orleans, Cook will work in a very different offense with far different priorities. It’s hard to envision Cook dragging both those volume and efficiency spikes with him across the country.

THE NEW-LOOK SAINTS PASSING GAME: WHERE’S THE BEEF?

Brees is sprinting toward the Hall of Fame, and he’s fresh off a 2018 season that stood as one of the most effective of his dazzling career. Still, there’s no escaping the fact that this is no longer the high-volume Saints attack of old. Dropbacks have plummeted as the team has found big success running the ball and shortening games.

Brees remains a deadly efficient passer, of course. It’s a real achievement to spin the league’s fifth-fewest dropbacks into the ninth-most net yardage. Brees doesn’t take many sacks, he doesn’t make many careless throws, and he’s rarely one to bail and fire the ball into the stands. Still, the passing volume here has dried up rapidly, and it’s no longer safe to project 35-40 attempts for a given Saints week. Without that high-number output, it’s always a crapshoot to assign opportunity way down a team’s pecking order.

And when setting fantasy expectations, it’s far more shrewd to chase volume than efficiency – even when discussing a Brees-led offense. Efficiency numbers tend to vacillate wildly, while volume tends to hold steadier. And there’s no longer a robust volume set to project here. The Saints’ high-flying passing outputs are now situational, rather than the norm. In a nutshell: it’s time to start viewing their skill-position prospects independently of yesteryear.

COMPETING WITH A TARGET HOG IN THE TRUEST SENSE

Stepping onto his fifth NFL roster, Cook will need to assimilate into another new passing game on the fly. And for the most part, Michael Thomas is the Saints passing game. It’s easy to see why: he’s a big-bodied, physical dominator with excellent hands (an 85% catch rate last year), capable of both excelling underneath and winning contested balls downfield. He’s the first read on most Brees dropbacks, and he’s utilized on routes of all depths. As a result, Thomas dominates targets to an absurd degree – one that landed second league-wide in 2018 (28.3%) and one that leaves very little work for peripheral players.

Thomas can’t draw every Saints target in 2019, but his presence in this dwindling pass game suffocates opportunity elsewhere. There’s not much exciting depth behind him, which is helping to drive up Cook’s ADP. But should it? Cook will spend 2019 sharing that peripheral volume with a handful of key situational threats that Payton and Brees covet:

RUNNING BACK ALVIN KAMARA

Squarely in the running for the NFL’s most dynamic creator, Kamara has cemented a prominent role in the passing game. Last year he siphoned off 105 targets over 15 games, producing an elite 6.75 yards apiece and finding the end zone 4 times. He’s also been a major red zone factor since the moment he onto the NFL scene. Over his 2 seasons, Kamara has drawn more looks (43) from inside the 20 than the likes of Keenan Allen, Adam Thielen, or Julio Jones.

WIDE RECEIVER TED GINN

A quick glimpse at Ginn’s injury-shortened 2018 (17 receptions, two touchdowns) might lead one to believe that he’s fading fast from this offense. But on closer inspection, we see the opposite. Ginn missed most or all of 12 of the Saints’ 18 games but drew at least 6 targets in each of his 6 full ones. He was reasonably effective, too, racking up 44 yards or more in 5 of them. He’ll almost certainly return as the team’s No. 2, and he remains a trusted all-around contributor, likely to draw at least 5-7 looks a game.

WIDE RECEIVER TREQUAN SMITH

Smith’s rookie season was as rocky as they come – he drew a modest 44 targets and topped 40 yards just 3 times. But he also posted a pair of 100-yard weeks and found the end zone on 5 of his 28 receptions. Any step forward in consistency would further keep the Saints’ target share cemented among the wideouts; it’s unlikely Cook eats into this role much, if at all.

SO, JUST HOW INVOLVED ARE THE SAINTS TIGHT ENDS NOWADAYS?

The short answer: not very. It’s always a juicy draft-day narrative, but this position hasn’t produced much at all since Jimmy Graham left town in 2014. Aside from Watson’s 2015 eruption* – career numbers by a country mile –, there’s been nothing fantasy-usable to find at the position:

Of course, it’s fair to speculate that Fleener and a 38-year-old Watson weren’t very good options. Cook looks significantly better; his 2018 breakout suggests he can outperform both, maximizing those opportunities more adeptly. But without much opportunity to begin with, Cook would still struggle to lock into the TE1 ranks. Boosting the position’s catch and yardage rates would be nice, but wouldn’t register much league-wide on just 70 or 80 targets. Efficient or not, Cook will need some noticeable swings from this well-established offense to make any real, consistent fantasy noise.

* It has to be noted that, even in Watson’s big 2015, the Saints’ tight end volume was nothing special. Watson drew a modest 16.5% of team targets that year, excelling on the back of a massive 667 team throws. As discussed above, the 667-attempt season is probably a thing of the past for Brees.

Red Zone or Dead Zone?

Last season in Oakland, Cook drew a robust 15 targets in the red zone. That included a stunning 11 from inside the 10-yard line, good for fourth-most in football and more than Zach Ertz or Davante Adams managed. But it’s hard not to view that as an outlier year: Cook has never been much of a short-yardage presence, nor any kind of touchdown threat. 2018 represented the first of his ten seasons to feature more than five targets from inside the 10. It’s no surprise, then, that it was also his first time finishing with more than five touchdowns.

Touchdowns don’t mean everything, of course. And Cook should see a lot more high-leverage opportunities in New Orleans than he’s ever seen as an NFL player. Still, this is the tight end position, and Cook checks in at an ADP level alongside the likes of Eric Ebron and Hunter Henry. Both have proven themselves true mismatches near the goal line, and both boast double-digit touchdown upside year in, year out. From a ceiling standpoint, Cook lags behind badly, in terms of both volume and touchdown potential. If nothing else, it dramatically loses Cook any draft-day tiebreaker with those guys.

Stats and Projections

Other Viewpoints

Pro Football Focus’ Jeff Ratcliffe seems to concur that Cook will outperform the Saints’ recent disappointments, but still struggle hard for big upside:

While it’s tempting to view this landing spot as a big upgrade for Cook, we have to be cautious in our evaluation. This is not the Jimmy Graham era. The Saints’ transition to a more run-based offense means fewer targets are on the table. That being said, getting to play with Brees is obviously a good thing. Cook is best viewed as a back-end TE1 with a high weekly ceiling. He’s a very intriguing best ball option.

Hunter Noll at Clutch Points is certainly bullish:

Some stats will definitely go down. But with Brees at QB and the talent around him, Cook should produce another fantastic fantasy season. Should he be the first tight end on your fantasy football draft boards? No. Could he put up top-5 production from the position in 2019? Absolutely.

Though Cory Bonini at The Huddle preaches caution with the late-blooming Cook:

…there are better options later in drafts that will allow one to utilize Cook’s early seventh-round pick on another position. Expect a streaky, underwhelming performance… there’s a reason it took him 10 seasons to finally enjoy a standout effort.

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