If you liked the Stephon Gilmore and Kony Ealy additions, you’re going to love the Patriots nabbing Brandin Cooks without losing Malcolm Butler! While we weighed the gain/loss of Cooks/Butler for the last day-and-a-half, it turns out Malcolm isn’t GOing anywhere!
TRADE! The Patriots have traded their #32 & 3rd #103 pick to the Saints for wide receiver Brandin Cooks & their 4th #118 pick per sources
— Dianna Russini (@diannaESPN) March 11, 2017
Bill Belichick is relentless. We knew there was cap space but we never suspected the majority of the early work would be through trades. It just shows how creative and efficient the Patriots are at staying ahead of the pack.
It’s exciting to think about the explosiveness Cooks will be in the offense. After seeing Chris Hogan and Malcolm Mitchell make nice with Tom Brady right out of the gate, I’m feeling like as long as Cooks doesn’t take #17 he’s going to have no problem adjusting to the Patriots’ offense.
Cooks can run every route in the playbook, including from out of the back field. He’s crisp with his routes and makes catches in traffic with his hands. His explosiveness makes him a threat to score every time he catches the ball. But he’s just as dangerous horizontally as he is vertically. The Patriots will move him all over the place and can dictate coverage with him.
This puts a spotlight on Danny Amendola a bit more now. At the right place I still think they’d like him back, but it might also be time to finally move on from the clutch wide out.
But don’t let Amendola’s future put a damper on this acquisition of Cooks. It changes the offense once again and should be near-impossible to stop. Exciting to see what happens in the backfield, but so far the Patriots are out to an awesome start to 2017. Hightower next please?
