Fantasy Football Today - James Cook Profile: A Rookie Sleeper? (06/12 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Can James Cook catch a lot of passes for the Bills? We haven't seen that from Bills running back in a long time.

Starting point is 00:00:23 Can he be fantasy relevant? We'll tell you right now on Fantasy Football Today in five. There's some excitement about James Cook, rookie running back for the Bills, late second round pick. This is a role that we just haven't really seen in the Bills offense under Brian Dable, but he is now the head coach of the Giants. So things are changing perhaps in Buffalo. I'm Adam Azer. I'm joined by Sportsline's Jacob Gibbs. He's got the best advanced stats, the best stats that you need to know. And check out all of his work on Sportsline.com. Jacob, why are you excited about James Cook? Cook has been one of the best receiving backs on a per-route basis that we've seen in a long time.

Starting point is 00:00:57 If you just compare his per-route rates to some of the other big-name running back prospects that have come out recently, he really, really stands out. So during the four seasons that he's been in Georgia, so from 2018 to 2021, look at target per route run rates. We've got Najee Harris, 14%, Clyde Edwards-Hilaire, 16%, Travis Etienne, DeAndre Swift, Michael Carter, all around 19%. And then James Cook leading all those guys at 20% yards per outrun. Clyde Edwards-Hilaire, 1.14, Najee Harris, 1.15, Carter, Swift, both in the 1.4 range, Travis Etienne, 1.7, really, really good. James Cook, 1.98. Clearly, standing out from all these guys who have either been touted or have been really productive NFL receiving backs. And we've seen, you know, Cook's former teammate, DeAndre Swift,

Starting point is 00:01:48 has taken his elite, you know, college production as a receiver and translated that to the NFL game right away. He's become one of the best receiving backs in the NFL. And we have route running opportunities available in Buffalo. It hasn't been, you know, the running back position hasn't been prioritized in the passing game there. But that could have a lot to do with Devin Singletary and Dayball, as you mentioned. But, yeah, Singletary has been running some of the most empty routes of any player in the NFL uh Najee Harris Ezekiel

Starting point is 00:02:08 Elliott and Austin Eckler were the only running backs who had more routes than Singletary last year um yeah which yeah people don't realize so he just doesn't throw it it's just Josh among 200 players with at least 350 routes run Sing-target ranked 180th in targets per outrun and 198th in yards per outrun um so he saw them try to sign mckissick and then eventually bring in james cook everything points towards him potentially having a big role as a receiver okay and i don't know if he's gonna have a big role as a rusher but if he does has he shown he's capable of of succeeding as a rusher i think so yeah when when i really got into his,

Starting point is 00:02:45 his metrics, what really stood out was his ability to create yards before contact. Um, that's something we talked about with Dalvin. Uh, he's really taking a step forward as NFL player. That's something we've also seen from Deandre Swift, um,

Starting point is 00:02:55 cook, you know, another easy back to compare to cook too. Um, so cook was right in line with the, with the average of the other prospects in the 2022 class in terms of ability to break tackles, um,

Starting point is 00:03:04 and creating yards after contact but when you look at his yards before contact he clearly stood out hearing first among the qualified prospects he was the only guy with a rate above 2.75 Rashad White was right there Cook was at 2.95 nobody else was even above 2.4 yards before contact so clearly stood out in that regard in the same way that Swift did. And so just on that note, I wanted to compare him and Swift. And when I did, um, Cook really stood out in every regard. He had a higher broken tackle rate than Swift during the, you know, their time at Georgia. He, um, had a higher yard before contact rate. Um, Swift had a slightly

Starting point is 00:03:39 higher yards after contact rate. Um, but Cook, um, was the one who created plays a big plays at a higher rate um and so i think his speed makes him more of a home run threat than swift swift as it's shown a little bit more consistency in his ability to uh you know create yards after contact but everything else points towards cook being on par with swift who has been you know really a strong efficient uh running back at the nfl level so i think that's all really exciting i think people really you know like to point towards receiving metrics, which are exciting, but his stuff as a rusher is really looking good too.

Starting point is 00:04:10 Yeah, I mean, they sort of called him, I believe they called him a complimentary back, so I don't know if they would let him really, he's kind of small, if they would let him become a rusher, but sometimes guys are thrust into roles they're not expected to have, and that's when you can really capitalize in fantasy. So it's nice to know that there's at least the potential for James Cook

Starting point is 00:04:28 if he gets those carries, which would probably be injury-related, but if he gets those carries, he can do a lot with them. Jacob, thank you very much. Everybody, thank you, and have a wonderful weekend, or it's Sunday while you're listening. So if you've been having a great weekend, for Jacob, I am Adam. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today in 5.

Fantasy Football Today - James Cook Profile: A Rookie Sleeper? (06/12 Fantasy Football Podcast)

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