Fantasy Football Bounceback Candidate: Brandin Cooks
WR Brandin Cooks (Houston Texans) | 7th Year
2019 Stats: 42 receptions for 583 yards, 2 TD
The 2019 campaign will go in the books as a lost one for Brandin Cooks. He missed two full games and a chunk of a few others due to two concussions-the fourth and fifth documented concussions of his NFL career. This offseason, he was traded from the Los Angeles Rams to the Houston Texans, where he will replace DeAndre Hopkins as the No. 1 wide receiver for Deshaun Watson. The Texans will be Cooks’ fourth team in seven seasons.
Cooks topped 1,000 yards in four straight seasons before last year (over 1,100 three times). In full PPR he finished as WR13 (2015), WR10 (2016), WR15 (2017) and WR13 (2018). As noted by Elisha Twerski of numberFire, Cooks is one of five wide receivers with a top-13 finish in standard leagues in four of the last five seasons. Perhaps you’ve heard of the other four-Julio Jones, Michael Thomas, Antonio Brown and Hopkins.
The Texans also signed Randall Cobb in free agency. But with Hopkins’ 150 targets from 2019 as the centerpiece, they have the fourth-most vacated targets in the league (a 32.2 percent share) along with a nearly 35 percent share in vacated air yards (via Rotoworld).
Cooks is clearly getting a significant upgrade in quarterback from Jared Goff to Watson. His concussion history is a big concern, but before 2019 he played all 16 games in four straight seasons.
With the role he’s stepping into and the big upgrade in who’s throwing him the ball, Cooks has a ceiling in line with his 2015-2018 track record on the high-end WR2/low-end WR1 border. At WR32 in 12-team full PPR and WR27 in 12-team standard, via Fantasy Football Calculator, the injury downside is baked into his ADP and it will surely remain baked into his ADP.
A full bounceback for Cooks in 2020 is to reach that aforementioned ceiling, with something resembling his average numbers from 2015-2018 (77 receptions for 1,149 yards and seven touchdowns) an obvious order if he’s to get there. I’m calling for a partial bounce, with the full bounce back a coin flip.
2020 Projection: 68 receptions for 1,093 yards, 7 TD
Bounceback Confidence Level: 50%
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