Brandin Cooks Went From Patriots To Rams, Is Still In The Super Bowl
With the New England Patriots returning to the Super Bowl for the third consecutive season, a whole lot of players have been playing multiple Super Bowls in a row.
One player who played in last year’s Super Bowl for the Patriots is back in this year’s game, but playing for the Los Angeles Rams.
Wide receiver Brandin Cooks suited up for the Patriots in Super Bowl LII, but he will play for the Rams this Sunday in Super Bowl LIII after being traded to the Rams last offseason.
Cooks, who played his college ball at Oregon State, was drafted in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft, taken as the 20th pick by the New Orleans Saints, who had traded up seven spots to take him.
Brandin Cooks has had a successful professional career. Beginning his NFL career at only 20-years-old, Cooks played for the Saints for the first three seasons of his career, per Pro Football Reference. He scored three touchdowns in 2014, nine touchdowns in 2015 and eight touchdowns in 2016, posting 1,000 receiving yards in the last two seasons.
With other receivers emerging for New Orleans, the Saints traded Cooks to the Patriots in March of 2017, surrendering a first-round pick, while the two teams swapped lower draft picks.
Upon suiting up with the Patriots, Cooks started 15 of the 16 games, catching 65 passes for 1082 yards and 7 touchdowns, and stepping up when Patriots receiver Julian Edelman suffered a season-ending injury. That year Cooks, who had never played in the playoffs for the Saints, started three games in the postseason, catching 10 passes for 155 yards.
However, in Super Bowl LII against the Philadelphia Eagles, Cooks was hit hard by Malcolm Jenkins of the Eagles, suffering a concussion and leaving the game. It would be Cooks’s final game in a Patriots uniform.
The Patriots traded Cooks to the Rams in April of 2018, getting back the first round pick they’d given up for him, with the Rams also getting a fourth-round draft pick and the Patriots getting a sixth-rounder back. Shortly after the trade, Cooks signed an extension with the Rams through 2023, for $88 million.
Brandin Cooks says it’s a ‘blessing’ to be in 2nd Super Bowl since Saints trade https://t.co/WrRjvPTaCn pic.twitter.com/HbnBwTlRf1
— SaintsNOW (@SaintsNOW) January 29, 2019
According to a USA Today report last year, which cited a radio interview with Albert Breer of NFL Network, the Patriots decided to trade Cooks after several other wide receivers around the league got large contracts, and New England rarely hands out long-term deals to players at that position.
With the Rams, Cooks set career highs for catches with 80 and receiving yards with 1,204, also catching five touchdowns, even though he was one of several weapons in the Rams’ potent offensive attack. In the playoffs this year, Cooks has had a total of 11 catches for 172 yards.
In the Super Bowl, Cooks, whose team defeated one of his former teams in the NFC championship game, will have a chance to gain revenge on the other team that traded him.
