Brandin Cooks – Targets, Route Maps and “tipping off” defenses?

The way that Sean Payton is using Brandin Cooks, and in particular whether he could (or should) be getting more out of the Oregon State stand-out, has been a hot topic during the bye-week for Saints fans. Here at the BoiLa we’ve been equally intrigued as to exactly how Cooks is being targeted on plays, and also exactly what routes he’s been running. With all that in mind, we decided to dust off our Microsoft Paint skills and map out all of the routes that Cooks has run on every single one of his 43 targets so far this season. Admittedly, it turned into a rather mammoth task given the archaic software at hand, but by plotting all of Cooks’ 2014 targets on something that vaguely resembles a football field, it has at least enabled us to uncover some rather interesting (and in some cases slightly concerning) trends and tendencies relating to the ways ways in which Payton/Brees are utilising Cooks so far this season. So, read on and all will be revealed.

First, just a quick note about the “route maps” you’ll see in this article. The pictures show every route Cooks has run on plays in which he has been targeted through the air in each game this season. They do not include any running plays or yards after catch (YAC) yardage, just the initial receiving route Cooks ran up until the moment he caught the pass (or it fell incomplete). This allows you to see exactly how far through the air Brees has been throwing it to Cooks on each target. Also, to add to the usefulness of these route maps we’ve made sure that the place where each route starts is as close as possible to where Cooks actually lined up on that play. The distance, direction and course of each run has also been as plotted with as much precision as we can get on Paint! Also, one last pointer, be aware that in the interest of simplicity we’ve produced these route maps on the presumption that every play was snapped from the middle of the field at the 20-yard line to offer an easy comparison between different routes run.

Right, onto the Route Maps:

OK. Fairly interesting, and incredibly beautiful(!), I think you’ll agree. Now, crunching the data that’s arisen from the above diagrams we’ve come up with the following observations and trends about how Cooks is being utilised in what seems to have become an almost positively “West Coast” New Orleans Saints offense.

Breaking down Cooks’ targets and routes:

Overall:

1.  Cooks has been targeted 43 times so far this season.
2.  On those 43 targets, Cooks has been lined up on the right side of the ball 21 times (49%), and on the left hand side 23 times (51%).
3.  Cooks has successfully caught 32 of his targets (74%).
4.  Of those 32 completions, 19 of these (59%) came with Cooks lined up to the left of Drew Brees and 13 to the right (41%).

Passes thrown behind the line of scrimmage:

5.  13 of Cooks’ 43 targets (30%) have actually been thrown to him behind the line of scrimmage.
6.  All 13 of these targets have been successfully completed.
7.  Of those 13 receptions, 10 of them (77%) have been when Cooks has lined up on the left hand side of the field.
8.  On all of these completions that were thrown to him behind the line of scrimmage, Cooks was lined up between 2-4 yards back from the football at the time of the snap.

Passes thrown 0-9 yards downfield:

9.  Out of Cooks 43 targets, 14 of them have been on routes travelling between 0-9 yards down the field (33%).
10.  On those 14 targets, Cooks has been lined up on the right side of the ball 8 times (57%), and on the left hand side 6 times (43%).
11.  Out of those 14 targets, 11 have been caught (79%).
12.  Cooks has been lined up to the right of the line of scrimmage on 6 of those completions (54%).

Passes thrown 10-20 yards downfield:

13.  35% of Cooks 43 targets have been on throws travelling between 10-20 yards down the field (15 in total).
14.  On those 15 targets, Cooks has been lined up on the right hand side of Brees 10 times, that’s 67%.
15.  Out of those 15 targets, 7 have been completions (47%).
16.  Of those complete passes, Cooks has been lined up on the right hand side for 71% of them.

Passes thrown 20+ yards downfield:

17.  Of Cooks’ 43 targets, only 1 has been thrown more than 20 yards downfield. That’s 2%.

What does all this mean for the Saints offense?

Arguably, the first thing to mention should probably be that five games is a fairly small sample size to be able to come to any kind of definitive conclusion on this. However, there are certainly some interesting trends arising out of this. The more obvious one, and the one that nearly every Saints fan has noticed, and many have questioned as to why, is that the majority of Cooks’ targets and catches are coming on shorter routes. This is clear to see from the route maps above. Another easy observation to make is that Cooks isn’t spending that much time playing outside the numbers as the split-end. From the split-end position you are more likely to run deeper, straighter routes, and it’s certainly something I think most people would like to see Cooks do more of in the future. But whatever, we all already knew all of that! The more interesting stuff that we uncovered from doing these route maps were the trends and tendencies that we hadn’t heard mentioned or discussed before regarding Cooks’ usage at the Saints so far.

The first one of these concerns Cooks’ alignment on shorter passes. From the route maps you can see that increasingly as the season has gone on, Payton and Brees have preferred to target Cooks on short or and negative yardage passes when he’s lined up on the left hand side of the line of scrimmage. When you think about this, there does seem to be a certain amount of logic to such favourtism. On that side of the line you’ve got the unprecedented speed of Terron Armstead, combined with the deceptive quickness and downfield blocking ability of Ben Grubbs. Seems like the perfect duo to try and get in front of Cooks to break a big gainer on a bubble screen of flat route. However, when it gets to the stage that over 75% of Cooks’ targets behind the line of scrimmage are coming on plays when he’s lined up on the left hand side and 2 to 4 yards off the line of scrimmage, then you do have to wonder if such a set up is starting to tip off opposition defenses. Is this happening with the Saints right now? Hard to say. But it’s certainly something to keep your eye on for the Detroit game and beyond when looking at the effectiveness of such plays.

At the other end of the spectrum, when New Orleans want Cooks to run routes that stretch further than the 1st down marker (which thus far has not been that often), Payton seems to favour lining Cooks up on the right hand side, and within 1 yard of the line of scrimmage. But then the same question crops up again; with nearly 70% of such targets involving Cooks setting up close to the line of scrimmage on Brees’ right hand side… does the opposition’s defense also recognise this trait and know what kind of route Cooks is going to run?

As said before, at this stage its worth taking all of these observations with a rather large pinch of salt. It seems drawing any definitve conclusions right now from any of the above would be slightly foolish, but we certainly found it all pretty interesting and hope that anyone else reading this has as well! There are most definitely some tendencies there that we’ll be keeping a keen eye on regarding Cooks in the weeks to come, and this may well be a feature that’s revisited later on in the year to see how things have developed with 2014’s first round pick.

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