Fantasy Football Outlook for Brandin Cooks with the Dallas Cowboys

Rob takes a look at what to expect from Brandin Cooks this year in fantasy football. He was traded from the Houston Texans to the Dallas Cowboys. Is he looking at a bounce-back season in Dallas?

One of the bigger moves this offseason has been the trade that sent Brandin Cooks from the Houston Texans to the Dallas Cowboys. However, this move, as exciting as it was, hasn’t done all that much for Cooks’ fantasy value this offseason. He currently finds himself around the WR40 range and can be had in the seventh and sometimes, the eighth round of your fantasy drafts. For a player of his skill level getting a significant upgrade in offense and quarterback play, this seems like a bargain. So, why doesn’t his price tag reflect that?

Previous Fantasy Football outlook articles based on some of the biggest NFL free agency moves this offseason

• DJ Moore's Trade to Chicago
• Derek Carr's Signing in New Orleans – How Does This Affect Carr and Chris Olave?
• Miles Sanders Signing with the Carolina Panthers
• Aaron Rodgers Trade to the Jets and the Impact it has on him and Garrett Wilson
• Darren Waller Trade to the New York Giants

For whatever reason, Cooks has struggled to stay in the same spot. He’s been in the league for nine seasons, has been on four different teams, and has never spent more than three seasons with any singular team. That hasn’t stopped him from racking up six 1,000-yard seasons in seven years though. Will he be able to add a seventh 1,000-yard season to that list?

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The Brandin Cooks Traveling Party

Brandin Cooks is going to be 30 this year, which among fantasy football managers, is a scary age for any non-quarterback player. The reality is, wide receivers aren’t nearly as prone to that somewhat arbitrary age rule as say running backs are. This isn’t a new phenomenon as it relates to fantasy football, but we often have very short-term memory. We have a “what have you done for me lately” mindset and we can sometimes write off some really good football players way too early. I believe that’s what is happening with Cooks.

Even last year, while he missed four games, he was on pace for 915 yards and this is despite quarterback play that ranked 31st out of 33 qualifying passers. He was also unhappy with the team after not having been traded last offseason and then not again following the trade deadline. Still, he averaged 7.15 targets per game and was on pace for 122. He was also on pace for 75 catches. That’s not really as bad as it seems considering the quarterback play. Let’s take a trip down memory lane to see what Cooks has provided over the years.

As you can see from the table above, we’re looking at an awfully good receiver. There are two seasons that stick out as obvious outliers and those are 2019 and 2022. If you’ll recall, the 2019 season was the year Cooks struggled with multiple concussions. He missed two games and left early in several more. He ended up playing fewer than 60% of the 14 games he appeared in and was mostly a lost season due to injuries. The 2022 season stands out as one of the worst of his career, but not surprisingly, that also coincides with, by far, the worst quarterback play he’s ever received – the only season where his team’s quarterbacks finished with a quarterback rating below 85 and it was well below that.

Eliminating those two seasons, if we take his worst per-game averages across the board in terms of targets, receptions, and yards, he’d still finish with 121 targets, 70 receptions, and 1,102 yards. Of those six remaining seasons, his worst half-PPR PPG average was 11.7. It really is amazing just how consistently good he’s been despite having to deal with new quarterbacks and new offenses so regularly.

He finished as the WR20 in 2015 in regard to half-PPR PPG average, WR10 (2016), WR14 (2017), WR20 (2018), WR18 (2020), and WR22 (2021). Considering how many teams and different quarterbacks he’s had to catch passes from, he’s been an incredibly consistent fantasy producer. Truly, the consistency is remarkable.

His new home in Dallas could not be any more different than where he was in Houston. The offensive output and passing game efficiency are on two sides of the extreme and that is going to pay major dividends to Cooks in 2023. Let me show you just how different these two teams were in the past two seasons.

Just take a gander at the difference in, well… just about everything. Last year was a poor season for Dak Prescott, but don’t forget what that man can do. Look at those 2021 numbers. Those are absolutely sensational and he did similar stuff in 2019 and 2020. Do not forget.

This is what makes Cooks such a good value right now. Not only do we have his poor season in 2022 largely due to abysmal quarterback play, but we also have a down season from Prescott, as well. However, both of these players have proven to be excellent football players. 2022, for both players, looks out of place in relation to how they have played in recent years.

Now, with Cooks you could make the argument with his age, it’s the beginning of his downward trajectory, which may be true to an extent, but with Prescott, fantasy managers should be a lot more optimistic he gets back to playing the way we’ve seen the three years prior.

2023 Final Expectations

Mike McCarthy has spent 13 years as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers, five years as the New Orleans Saints' offensive coordinator, one year as the 49ers’ offensive coordinator, and three years as the Dallas Head Coach. In those 22 years, his offenses have finished 16th or higher in pass attempts 15 times. 11 times they’ve been inside the top 10.

In 19 years they’ve finished 16th or higher in passing yards and in 15 years they were in the top 10. For passing touchdowns, his offenses have finished 16th or better 18 times and they finished in the top 10 14 times.

More recently with Dallas, in 2022 they ranked 19th, 14th, and 9th in attempts, yards, and touchdowns. In 2021, they finished sixth, second, and third respectively and in 2020, they were second, eighth, and 19th. This is a dude with a long, long history of wanting to throw the football and whose offenses have been incredibly good at it.

Yes, yes, I hear you… having Aaron Rodgers is certainly a big help to that, but ladies and gentlemen, Prescott is really quite good. Over his career, he has averaged 257 yards and 1.71 touchdowns per game. Over 17-games games, those averages would equate to 4,369 yards and 29 touchdowns a season. He also owns a 66.6% career completion percentage and has a 97.8 quarterback rating.

Just for reference, Rodgers has averaged 263 yards and 1.73 touchdowns per game with a career 65.3% completion percentage and a 103.6 quarterback rating. I’m not saying Prescott is as good as Rodgers, that’s clearly not the case, but Prescott has been very good in his own right.

With the loss of Ezekiel Elliott, I expect the Cowboys to pass the ball more this season. Their offensive personnel leans that way. They have strong pass-catchers with CeeDee Lamb, Cooks, and Michael Gallup. Tony Pollard is also an explosive pass-catcher out of the backfield. We’re going to be working off of a 575-attempt season, which is 33.8 per game. This is just a slight increase from their 32.9 rate from last season. In all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up slightly higher than that.

Now, we’re going to do a bit of a what-if scenario to see if we can see what kind of range of outcomes Cooks has in 2023. Working off of that 575-attempt season, we’re going to give Cooks a 20% target share. Outside of his Houston years, where he was the undisputed and unquestioned No. 1 target, Cooks has just one other season with a target share of over 20%. However, in those four other seasons, his target share has ranged from 17.3% to 22.6%, so 20% is mostly in the middle.

For his career, Cooks has a 65.4% catch rate, which has held pretty steady regardless of where he’s been. It was 65.6% in Houston, 68.1% with the Saints, and 67.6% with New England. For this scenario, we’ll say he’s going to catch 65% of his targets and that he finishes with a 13.5-yard per reception average. He has a 13.7 career average, which has also remained pretty consistent at his multiple destinations. It was 12.7 in Houston, 13.3 in New Orleans, 14.6 in Los Angeles, and 16.6 in New England. He has a career 5.1% touchdown rate, but if we eliminate his 2021 and 2022 seasons, it jumps up to 5.4%. Why would we do this? Because Prescott more closely resembles Brees and Goff than he does Davis Mills, but let’s give him a 5.0% rate for right now. What would that look like?

That 10.3 half-PPR PPG average would’ve finished as the WR29, which is still solidly ahead of his current WR40 ranking that he currently finds himself at. Now, let’s say he has a 22.5% target share, which more closely resembles his Houston seasons, but is also identical to his first season with the Rams. We’ll keep everything else the same: 65% catch rate, 13.5 YPR, and 5.0% touchdown rate.

This 11.4 half-PPR PPG average would’ve ranked as the WR20 last season, tied with Jerry Jeudy. That target share may not seem so far-fetched. The Cowboys lost Dalton Schultz and his 89 targets and Noah Brown with his 74 targets to free agency, which amounts to 163, and we’re also projecting an ever-so-slightly increase in pass attempts by just 20 across the entire season.

Unfortunately, we have to consider what the floor might be. That might be with Cooks sitting at just an 18.0% target share with Michael Gallup also returning to form and commanding a larger piece of the pie than he did last year. If the Cowboys choose to use Cooks as their downfield threat, that could also limit his target share. That's the role we're projecting him here with an 18% target share, a 65% catch rate, a 15-yard per reception average, and a 5.0% touchdown rate.

As you can see, this outcome isn't all that different than the first one. I'm certainly higher on Cooks than consensus, but there are a lot of reasons to believe Cooks has a bounce-back season. Gallup has never really been a difference maker and Dallas has a lot of targets to replace after losing Schultz and Brown. The Cowboys will be a pass-heavy offense and Cooks is all but guaranteed to be Prescott's No. 2 target. That's a great place for him to be and over the past couple of years, that's been an extremely productive fantasy spot.

We're looking at a range of outcomes from WR20 to about WR30. You can take each side with a grain of salt if you'd like, but still, it's hard not to love Cooks' at his current price point of WR40. This should be a player fantasy managers are absolutely smashing right now.

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