Jared Cook’s impact on Oakland Raiders offense is being overblown

For some reason, the Raiders signing of Jared Cook is being praised as something incredible when it’s actually quite ordinary.

The Oakland Raiders already boasted a dangerous offense last season. If you read the press, the addition of free agent tight end Jared Cook is drawing rave reviews as if the signing will give quarterback Derek Carr another impact target in his passing arsenal.

Cook is certainly a talented football player and it’s impossible to forget his unbelievable sideline catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs. In fact, for the sake of respecting Cook’s ability, let’s watch that one more time.

With that out of the way, however, let’s be honest about the type of offensive impact that Cook brings to his employers. Rapoport calls this a “huge addition,” and apparently that means the type of player who had 30 catches for 377 yards last year. Or maybe it’s the player with a single touchdown over the last two seasons. Or maybe it’s the guy who has averaged 6 games started per season in his 8 year career (including 5 last year).

Last year with the Green Bay Packers, Cook had 4 games in which he had only 1 catch and, in each of those games, he had a maximum of 15 yards. Aaron Rodgers is a more talented quarterback than Carr who makes his receivers look quite nice, and Cook only had one game with more than 8 targets. Most of the time, he was relegated to second tier behind the Packers talented wideouts. That’s not Cook’s fault, since he’s not in charge of whether or not he’s thrown the ball, but it does show there’s no reason for any team to put tremendous stock in his addition to the roster.

Has Jared Cook enjoyed some fine moments? Absolutely. Is he an elite tight end? Ask the Packers who let Cook walk after knowing exactly what they had in him and then made a move for Martellus Bennett. In fact, Cook’s finest moments in his career came in the playoffs just last season with Green Bay. That’s likely what Rapoport (and even the Raiders) are looking at with this signing. But then no one is mentioning that the Packers let him walk anyway.

The reality is that Jared Cook is a nice receiving tight end who will have 2 or so catches every game for a couple dozen yards. If the Raiders are paying him accordingly, then that’s a solid move. Carr will certainly enjoy another reliable target to go with Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree. But Clive Walford had better numbers than Cook last year, and no one is referring to him as anything special for the Raiders offense.

Congrats to the Raiders for signing the equivalent of Kevin Boss.