Tom Brady on newly-acquired Brandin Cooks: 'He's been great'
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FOXBORO – Tom Brady addressed a number of topics in his 15-minute conversation with the media after Friday’s scrimmage, among them the fact that the other quarterbacks gave him a birthday cake that said “old,” the recent CTE study findings and an offseason acquisition who’s quickly becoming one of his favorite targets.
Brandin Cooks, 23, comes to Foxboro following an offseason trade with the New Orleans Saints, and he’s impressed since day one.
“He’s been great,” Brady said. “I mean, just so fun to be with, so fun to work with, comes in every day with a great attitude and wants to work hard and is unselfish and been out here every day practicing and working on different things. He and I are building up a rapport, but that takes a lot of time to be built.”
Brady has already placed Cooks in elite territory, saying that “he really adds to a great group of other receivers that I’ve been fortunate to play with for a long time.”
Cooks made just one catch on Friday, but it arguably the best one of the day. After Stephon Gilmore broke up a pass intended for Cooks, he redeemed himself on the next play, reaching over Gilmore in triple coverage for an impressive 40-yard play.
“That was a great catch,” Brady said. “You know, I tried to draw them offsides and we got them, so it was kind of a free play. I think I’ve seen some other teams do that.
Tom Brady addresses the media after practice.
To make a 50-yard play, or however far that was, was a big play, but those are the kind of plays we need. If we can build those things into our offense and make some of those down-the-field plays, that takes some more pressure off other parts of the offense.”
“Certainly, when guys are making plays that far down the field, they’ve got to cover and they’ve got to respect it,” Brady continued. “You know, I’ve always said I try to throw it where they’re not, so if they’re deep, you throw it short. If they’re short, you throw it deep. If they’re outside, you throw it inside. You try to throw it where they’re not, so that was a great example today of what we’re trying to do.”
Cooks highlights a receiving corps that has been plagued with injuries early on. Julian Edelman, Chris Hogan and Danny Amendola were among those missing from action on Friday, but Cooks has picked up the slack.
Brady says, though, that it will take time to become fully comfortable with the newest weapon in his arsenal.
“That goes all the way through the season,” he said. “And there’s a lot of things that come up in the season that you never had a chance to practice. We’re working hard at it. I mean we’re talking about things, there’s a lot of things that go on to try to improve the learning curve.”
“Extremely important. I mean there’s no way to – everything we do is to come out here and practice. I mean everything you do in the offseason for training and workouts and rest and recovery is come out and prove it on the field. so you know, you cant get better by not doing anything. I mean at least that’s not what I believe. So I believe you have to breally, you know, active with your training, you have to go run the reps you have to learn from mistakes.