The Buffalo Bills swapped one No. 18 for another.
It might foreshadow changes coming to the passing game.
Roughly 90 minutes after the Bills announced they released wide receiver Elijah Moore, recently-signed receiver Brandin Cooks took to the practice field wearing the jersey number vacated by Moore. They are similar sizes, but have completely different skill sets.
During his first four seasons in the NFL, Moore was a serviceable receiver who carved a niche as a player who did most of his damage within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Cooks, meanwhile, has built a solid 12-year career as one of the league’s best receivers 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
The question for the 32-year-old Cooks, who asked for and was granted his release from the New Orleans Saints a week earlier, is whether he still has the speed that led to six 1,000-yard seasons and 60 touchdowns.
“It ain’t left,” Cooks said with a big smile Wednesday after practice.
Cooks was averaging a career-low 8.7 yards per catch with the Saints, largely being asked to be a clear-out guy underneath to create more space for teammates. But he’s also averaged 13.3 yards per catch for his career, coming on an average depth per target of 11.9 yards.
If the Bills weren’t interested in using Cooks’ best attributes, it would be a perplexing acquisition at this point in the season.
“Not coming here trying to say, ‘I need this, I need that,’” Cooks said. “I think it’ll naturally happen, and when it happens, just remind them. If that’s my job, that’s my job. At the end of the day, I just want to win and show that I got a lot of football left and that’s why this decision was made.”
Since Joe Bardy took over as the offensive coordinator 10 games into 2023, Buffalo’s downfield passing game has been muted. Josh Allen’s 43-yard touchdown to Tyrell Shavers against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was the first throw over 40 air yards of Brady’s tenure as the play-caller.
But while the Bills could use a few more deep shots per game, Allen, for all his arm strength, isn’t a tremendous deep-ball thrower. But where he thrived, where he is great, is when he can attack between 11 to 19 yards downfield.
Allen is averaging 7.8 air yards per attempt this season, ranking 21st in the league. Last season’s MVP performance masked foreshadowing for this season.
He averaged 8.3 air yards per attempt last season, finishing 14th in the league. Allen had never finished outside the top-10 or averaged fewer than 8.6 over the first six seasons of his career. His average depth per target never dipped under 9 yards during his first six seasons, but it’s been under 8 over the last two.
And Allen ranked seventh or better on number of throws between 11 and 19 yards before Brady, the percentage of those throws dropping by a full percentage point. Field-stretching attempts usually come on first down because the defense has to be cognizant of the run, making them less likely to blitz or have an upfield rush.
But since Brady began calling plays, the Bills have run the ball 61% of the time on first down. Brady’s predecessors, Brian Daboll and Ken Dorsey, threw the ball on 60% of first downs from 2020 until midway through 2023 when Dorsey was fired.
And over 30% of Allen’s first-down drop-backs this season have come out of heavy personnel.
“When you’re playing against a good defensive line, the time to get that done is at a premium,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “… Do you chip? Do you add more protection? So all those things factor into some of the adjustments. And you also have to change tempo — not necessarily no-huddle tempo — but you’ve got a defense that triggers and it plays fast and aggressive. And how we can use that against them are some of the areas we need to dive into.”
Beyond the unknowns of what Cooks can provide, the Bills haven’t had success integrating mid-season acquisitions into the offense. Albeit with a broken wrist, Amari Cooper played fewer than 50% of the snaps in half of his eight regular-season games, along with all three playoff games last year.
Running back Nyheim Hines played more than 10 offensive snaps once in nine games after the Bills traded for him in 2022. Cooks spent roughly 15 minutes after practice Wednesday — along with Keon Coleman — running routes with Allen.
“(Cooks) already basically learned our playbook,” Allen said. “He’s an extremely high football IQ-guy. … The way that he carries himself, the way that he is in meetings — already it’s very apparent that he’s a true professional. To come out here and practice the way that he did speaks a lot about who he is as a person, who he is as a player.”
NOTES: Allen appeared on the injury report Wednesday with a right elbow injury, but he practiced in full while wearing a small pad on it. … LB Terrel Bernard (elbow), OT Spencer Brown (shoulder), OT Dion Dawkins (concussion), DT DaQuan Jones (illness), TE Dalton Kincaid (hamstring) and WR Curtis Samuel (elbow/knee) did not practice. … CB Maxwell Hairston (concussion), DT Phidarian Mathis (shoulder) and WR Joshua Palmer (ankle) were limited.