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By Bob Sturm 11m ago
The biggest signing in a quiet Cowboys offseason has involved a name familiar to fans of the team. Randall Cobb has come over from Green Bay to help replace the outgoing Cole Beasley.
Cobb is well known as being a real focal point in most of Green Bay’s games against Dallas this decade, including an eight-catch, 116-yard performance in the famous “Dez Catch” game back in January of 2015. That day, he was a thorn in the side of a Dallas defense that could not quite figure out the best way to defend a receiver frequently lining up at running back next to Aaron Rodgers in the second half. The idea was that there would be too much traffic for a man-defender (Orlando Scandrick) to work through the mess and still gain any leverage advantage on the other end. The Packers could get Cobb a free release in any situation.
What many fans forget about that day in Green Bay was the final Packers drive that killed four minutes and six seconds ater the controversial and incorrect call on Dez Bryant’s catch. Green Bay had no incentive to score on that drive, but they did need to run a four-minute drill to milk the last of the clock, as giving Dallas back the football with only a five-point lead seemed suboptimal.
Dallas forced a 3rd and 11 at the 35-yard line going into the 2:00 warning. With a stop, they would surely get the ball with plenty of time to save the day. The chances that Green Bay would risk a 52-yard field goal in that weather and with that field position hanging in the balance is rather unlikely.
Green Bay somehow converted on a wobbly, tipped pass to Cobb after motioning him out of the backfield. It must still baffle Scandrick when he relives the moment.
In retrospect, there is no doubt Rodgers is seeking a simple defensive holding penalty rather than trying to complete a pass. The receiver isn’t open and if Scandrick turns just a bit, he might just pick the pass off. Of course, there can be no pass interference penalty if the ball is tipped at the line, as Tyrone Crawford gets a piece. This ill-advised pass was somehow completed on the biggest play of the day. From there, all Green Bay needed to secure the win was three kneel-downs.
That no-doubt unpleasant piece of Cowboys history is probably pretty high up the list of huge moments for Cobb at his former and only employer in the NFL. He missed the Packers’ Super Bowl victory in Dallas by just a few months but has played in eleven different playoff games since he was drafted in 2011’s second round. Along the way he made a lot of plays and a lot of money, as he just completed a fully-paid four-year, $40 million contract that took him from 2015-2018. He was a very productive and movable piece in Green Bay’s offense; one that was responsible for many great days, but over the course of time those many moments started to take a toll.
He missed a fair amount of time due to injuries along the way. In 2013, a broken leg in Baltimore took his season. In 2015, one of his lungs was punctured in a playoff game. There were shoulder pains, hamstring issues and concussions during the last few years, sapping a lot of the juice that made Cobb great. He was an unreal playmaker in 2014; that is why the Packers wrote his contract. By 2018, he played only 466 snaps, less than half the load he carried at his peak. Once again, we see that availability is the most important ability.
Bob McGinn is both the career inspiration of my formative years and a wonderful writer of all things Green Bay Packers for decades. On his website, he recently processed the end of the era in Green Bay for the fan favorite:
At 28, Cobb definitely isn’t old. However, he joined the Packers as a second-round draft choice in 2011 still four months shy of his 21[SUP]st[/SUP] birthday and, in eight seasons, has taken a ton of punishment.
From 2011-’18, Cobb was able to play every game just twice. Last year, knee surgery limited him to seven snaps in exhibition games. Then he missed Games 4-6 with a hamstring, Games 9-11 with another hamstring and Game 15 with a concussion.
Cobb’s production waned over the last four seasons. His hands deserted him in 2015 (14 drops), he lost the ability to separate vertically and slot defenders were able to cover him much tighter than earlier when his quickness was world-class.
“His legs are dead,” an AFC personnel man said earlier in the month. “He doesn’t have the quickness or the explosion that he once had. He could still catch 40 or 50 (passes).”
Those are harsh words for someone who was able to bank the longest catch of his career back in Week 1 of the 2018 season. When you watch this play against the Bears — a 3rd and 10 during which the game was on the line and Cobb scored the winning touchdown — it would seem hard to agree that his legs are dead.
Cobb is in the right slot and runs a crossing route. He stops to give Rodgers a pass at the sticks, then finds himself behind the Bears safeties after Eddie Jackson gambles on the throw.
On that particular play, Cobb showed his finest attribute. He was a perfect fit for Aaron Rodgers in the second phase of the play. Green Bay has become famous for the two different portions of each play; the design portion (the first three seconds or so) and then “after the design,” where Rodgers tries to stay alive in the pocket and the targets adjust to “get open.” Although this led to mixed success for the Packers, it is where Cobb was fantastic through the years. He always knew how to make himself available and that is where his big plays would happen.
That can make him a very valuable piece in Dallas if he can transfer those instincts and comfort about where he will be and how he will get there from Rodgers to Dak Prescott. You may suggest that Rodgers and Prescott have very little in common, and we can agree on that overall premise. But they both stay alive in the pocket to extend a play. Often this ends in a frustrating sack where their fans are screaming for them to get rid of the ball. But that is often the collateral damage to finding big plays if a design fails to deliver. At times, QBs are trying to overcome a poor scheme they are working with through pure feel and chemistry. And this is one aspect of the game where Prescott and Cole Beasley never really found much gold.
Now, before people get carried away with that statement, let’s be clear: In 2018, Cole Beasley is clearly a better NFL commodity than Randall Cobb. I say that as someone who witnessed each and every snap both players played this past year. This is also probably the first time I would ever say that, because over the course of their careers — which are just about the same length — there is no question Cobb is the better player. But Buffalo was happy to lay out over $14 million in guaranteed money to get Beasley, while Cobb settled for just $2 million in guarantees to come to Dallas. This type of discrepancy should tell us the league was not falling over itself to bring Cobb in.
They are remarkably different players despite having rather similar roles, if we choose to define them simply as slot receivers. When you break down what their schemes and abilities would ask them to do, however, you see they are certainly not alike. Let’s look at a few things that can be measured.
Above, we find their first-down production over the last five years. Cobb was certainly more productive overall, but that distinction is all from 2014. Over the last four seasons, Beasley doesn’t take a backseat when it comes to the simple ability to move the chains, which is the top responsibility of any slot receiver.
The above graphic is certainly interesting, too. It shows the average distance downfield at the catch point in each player’s usage. Cobb is used down the field so much more than Beasley and has over three times as many “explosives” in his career (20+ yard receptions: 89-25 in favor of Cobb). But it’s clear the decline of Cobb’s athleticism is perhaps leveling that out.
Of course, the above only measures completions. To break down targets, let’s use Airyards.com to show us how each has been used.
Beasley, 2017-18:
Cobb, 2017-18:
Football is a game of inches and these charts may look similar, but the point here is to show Cobb is still running vertically on a regular basis, whereas Beasley was either not asked to do that or was not as capable of finding big plays down the field, with the exception of that moment at Giants Stadium in Week 17 when he did it very well.
Beasley’s chart shows he was always being used between 3-7 yards down the field. Cobb’s is far more diverse and unpredictable. It’s a much bigger route tree. Perhaps he is not nearly the force Cole was underneath, but he can stress a secondary.
This wasn’t always the design, but Rodgers would occasionally send Cobb vertically and try to hit him down the field for a home run. In 2018, they had connection problems. In that neck of the woods, the QB is seldom blamed, so their failure was quickly blamed on the WR as being a bit washed up. He definitely isn’t the same player he once was, but I think the film will show they had some chances where he was open down the field and Rodgers just missed.
Over the weekend, I went through Cobb’s abbreviated 2018 film and thought I would share the 10 plays that best described his year.
This was Cobb’s most frequent route of 2018 by a good margin. His three most-used routes were 1. WR Screen, 2. Slant, and 3. Go route. Beasley would run the familiar shallow routes over and over; his top three were 1. Out, 2. Slant, and 3. Curl. Cobb can make a man miss in traffic, especially if that man is a safety trying to run with him in space, which teams will try against slots.
4th and 3 in Washington: This game was a really frustrating one. Here, Rodgers and Cobb should be able to extend a drive pretty easily with Cobb in the backfield, but Rodgers makes the throw harder than it should be and Cobb doesn’t catch it cleanly. They turn the ball over on downs. This snap was a microcosm of Green Bay’s season.
This pass on the next drive featured a Cobb screen, a Cobb fumble and a Cobb injury (I believe this is where his hamstring was aggravated) all wrapped into one. This was September 23rd, and he would not play again until October 28th in Los Angeles.
Upon Cobb’s return, here is a two-man play-action route where Cobb gets free, Rodgers throws the ball off the ear of the DB (it looks a little like his throw against Scandrick) and the Packers gain 18 quick yards. Cobb can definitely catch tight throws.
This was the easiest way to move the chains on second or third and short. Quick and effective, hit Cobb in stride, take eight or nine yards and keep the drive going.
Unfortunately, this play shows us two things we don’t like. One, a safety is able to stay on top of Cobb in a man situation on a vertical and he is never open. And two, he hurts his hamstring and is gone from November 4th to December 2nd. During this time, Green Bay falls out of the playoff race almost completely as they now are left with low-level rookies playing significant roles.
Back on the field, Cobb lines up from the left slot. He runs an out-and-up, then catches a beautiful pass from Rodgers that is right on the money in a short space. Everything is great. He looks explosive and dynamic, like the Randall Cobb of old.
Green Bay’s season was hanging by a thread on this day in Chicago in Week 15, but they still had the slightest chance if they could figure something out here. We don’t have a ton of Randall Cobb tape from 2018 that feels relevant, but this day was shocking. I have no idea what was wrong with Aaron Rodgers, but consistently open players against a Bears defense that was thought to be superb was enough of a shock. Seeing Rodgers miss them so badly was just as shocking. If this day tells us much, it is that Cobb can still get open.
Here, Rodgers ignores an open Jimmy Graham underneath to look for an open Randall Cobb up top. Both times, we must assume the windy city was causing problems. Thank goodness Dak never had this hard a time in a similar situation. It pays to get the benefit of the doubt.
Finally, here is Cobb as the hot receiver with a blitz, uncovering as he goes down the seam for a key third-down conversion. Unfortunately, he also suffered a concussion and missed Week 16 after another run-in with Eddie Jackson.
What did we learn here?
For $5 million, only $2 million of it guaranteed, this has a chance to be a really nice addition for the Cowboys. Cobb is very intelligent, knows what to do when plays break down and is not remotely scared of big moments.
He also has been through some wars and his body is not what it used to be. Perhaps it is an unfortunate series of events, but the more likely answer is this is what the normal decline of a smaller player built on speed looks like. Cobb has played for a long time and taken a lot of hits.
Either way, he is not Cole Beasley. He cannot run option routes all day underneath and uncover like Cole, but he can also run double moves, and Beasley has never shown that.
In other words, he will act as a different club in the bag of Prescott and Kellen Moore. He should present the Cowboys with some real opportunities, and with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, provides Dallas a solid trio of receivers. Beasley was great at one thing. That was a very important thing, but it certainly also could lend to a bland design.
We shall see. But, for someone who thinks Cobb will still have some plays to make, I like this use of funds to try to find a dangerous slot man. In fact, this might be one of the best free-agent signings in the league this year on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
Like so many players in this sport, our ultimate judgment of Cobb’s signing will depend on how often his body can still answer the bell.
By Bob Sturm 11m ago
The biggest signing in a quiet Cowboys offseason has involved a name familiar to fans of the team. Randall Cobb has come over from Green Bay to help replace the outgoing Cole Beasley.
Cobb is well known as being a real focal point in most of Green Bay’s games against Dallas this decade, including an eight-catch, 116-yard performance in the famous “Dez Catch” game back in January of 2015. That day, he was a thorn in the side of a Dallas defense that could not quite figure out the best way to defend a receiver frequently lining up at running back next to Aaron Rodgers in the second half. The idea was that there would be too much traffic for a man-defender (Orlando Scandrick) to work through the mess and still gain any leverage advantage on the other end. The Packers could get Cobb a free release in any situation.
What many fans forget about that day in Green Bay was the final Packers drive that killed four minutes and six seconds ater the controversial and incorrect call on Dez Bryant’s catch. Green Bay had no incentive to score on that drive, but they did need to run a four-minute drill to milk the last of the clock, as giving Dallas back the football with only a five-point lead seemed suboptimal.
Dallas forced a 3rd and 11 at the 35-yard line going into the 2:00 warning. With a stop, they would surely get the ball with plenty of time to save the day. The chances that Green Bay would risk a 52-yard field goal in that weather and with that field position hanging in the balance is rather unlikely.
Green Bay somehow converted on a wobbly, tipped pass to Cobb after motioning him out of the backfield. It must still baffle Scandrick when he relives the moment.
In retrospect, there is no doubt Rodgers is seeking a simple defensive holding penalty rather than trying to complete a pass. The receiver isn’t open and if Scandrick turns just a bit, he might just pick the pass off. Of course, there can be no pass interference penalty if the ball is tipped at the line, as Tyrone Crawford gets a piece. This ill-advised pass was somehow completed on the biggest play of the day. From there, all Green Bay needed to secure the win was three kneel-downs.
That no-doubt unpleasant piece of Cowboys history is probably pretty high up the list of huge moments for Cobb at his former and only employer in the NFL. He missed the Packers’ Super Bowl victory in Dallas by just a few months but has played in eleven different playoff games since he was drafted in 2011’s second round. Along the way he made a lot of plays and a lot of money, as he just completed a fully-paid four-year, $40 million contract that took him from 2015-2018. He was a very productive and movable piece in Green Bay’s offense; one that was responsible for many great days, but over the course of time those many moments started to take a toll.
He missed a fair amount of time due to injuries along the way. In 2013, a broken leg in Baltimore took his season. In 2015, one of his lungs was punctured in a playoff game. There were shoulder pains, hamstring issues and concussions during the last few years, sapping a lot of the juice that made Cobb great. He was an unreal playmaker in 2014; that is why the Packers wrote his contract. By 2018, he played only 466 snaps, less than half the load he carried at his peak. Once again, we see that availability is the most important ability.
Bob McGinn is both the career inspiration of my formative years and a wonderful writer of all things Green Bay Packers for decades. On his website, he recently processed the end of the era in Green Bay for the fan favorite:
At 28, Cobb definitely isn’t old. However, he joined the Packers as a second-round draft choice in 2011 still four months shy of his 21[SUP]st[/SUP] birthday and, in eight seasons, has taken a ton of punishment.
From 2011-’18, Cobb was able to play every game just twice. Last year, knee surgery limited him to seven snaps in exhibition games. Then he missed Games 4-6 with a hamstring, Games 9-11 with another hamstring and Game 15 with a concussion.
Cobb’s production waned over the last four seasons. His hands deserted him in 2015 (14 drops), he lost the ability to separate vertically and slot defenders were able to cover him much tighter than earlier when his quickness was world-class.
“His legs are dead,” an AFC personnel man said earlier in the month. “He doesn’t have the quickness or the explosion that he once had. He could still catch 40 or 50 (passes).”
Those are harsh words for someone who was able to bank the longest catch of his career back in Week 1 of the 2018 season. When you watch this play against the Bears — a 3rd and 10 during which the game was on the line and Cobb scored the winning touchdown — it would seem hard to agree that his legs are dead.
Cobb is in the right slot and runs a crossing route. He stops to give Rodgers a pass at the sticks, then finds himself behind the Bears safeties after Eddie Jackson gambles on the throw.
On that particular play, Cobb showed his finest attribute. He was a perfect fit for Aaron Rodgers in the second phase of the play. Green Bay has become famous for the two different portions of each play; the design portion (the first three seconds or so) and then “after the design,” where Rodgers tries to stay alive in the pocket and the targets adjust to “get open.” Although this led to mixed success for the Packers, it is where Cobb was fantastic through the years. He always knew how to make himself available and that is where his big plays would happen.
That can make him a very valuable piece in Dallas if he can transfer those instincts and comfort about where he will be and how he will get there from Rodgers to Dak Prescott. You may suggest that Rodgers and Prescott have very little in common, and we can agree on that overall premise. But they both stay alive in the pocket to extend a play. Often this ends in a frustrating sack where their fans are screaming for them to get rid of the ball. But that is often the collateral damage to finding big plays if a design fails to deliver. At times, QBs are trying to overcome a poor scheme they are working with through pure feel and chemistry. And this is one aspect of the game where Prescott and Cole Beasley never really found much gold.
Now, before people get carried away with that statement, let’s be clear: In 2018, Cole Beasley is clearly a better NFL commodity than Randall Cobb. I say that as someone who witnessed each and every snap both players played this past year. This is also probably the first time I would ever say that, because over the course of their careers — which are just about the same length — there is no question Cobb is the better player. But Buffalo was happy to lay out over $14 million in guaranteed money to get Beasley, while Cobb settled for just $2 million in guarantees to come to Dallas. This type of discrepancy should tell us the league was not falling over itself to bring Cobb in.
They are remarkably different players despite having rather similar roles, if we choose to define them simply as slot receivers. When you break down what their schemes and abilities would ask them to do, however, you see they are certainly not alike. Let’s look at a few things that can be measured.
Above, we find their first-down production over the last five years. Cobb was certainly more productive overall, but that distinction is all from 2014. Over the last four seasons, Beasley doesn’t take a backseat when it comes to the simple ability to move the chains, which is the top responsibility of any slot receiver.
The above graphic is certainly interesting, too. It shows the average distance downfield at the catch point in each player’s usage. Cobb is used down the field so much more than Beasley and has over three times as many “explosives” in his career (20+ yard receptions: 89-25 in favor of Cobb). But it’s clear the decline of Cobb’s athleticism is perhaps leveling that out.
Of course, the above only measures completions. To break down targets, let’s use Airyards.com to show us how each has been used.
Beasley, 2017-18:
Cobb, 2017-18:
Football is a game of inches and these charts may look similar, but the point here is to show Cobb is still running vertically on a regular basis, whereas Beasley was either not asked to do that or was not as capable of finding big plays down the field, with the exception of that moment at Giants Stadium in Week 17 when he did it very well.
Beasley’s chart shows he was always being used between 3-7 yards down the field. Cobb’s is far more diverse and unpredictable. It’s a much bigger route tree. Perhaps he is not nearly the force Cole was underneath, but he can stress a secondary.
This wasn’t always the design, but Rodgers would occasionally send Cobb vertically and try to hit him down the field for a home run. In 2018, they had connection problems. In that neck of the woods, the QB is seldom blamed, so their failure was quickly blamed on the WR as being a bit washed up. He definitely isn’t the same player he once was, but I think the film will show they had some chances where he was open down the field and Rodgers just missed.
Over the weekend, I went through Cobb’s abbreviated 2018 film and thought I would share the 10 plays that best described his year.
This was Cobb’s most frequent route of 2018 by a good margin. His three most-used routes were 1. WR Screen, 2. Slant, and 3. Go route. Beasley would run the familiar shallow routes over and over; his top three were 1. Out, 2. Slant, and 3. Curl. Cobb can make a man miss in traffic, especially if that man is a safety trying to run with him in space, which teams will try against slots.
4th and 3 in Washington: This game was a really frustrating one. Here, Rodgers and Cobb should be able to extend a drive pretty easily with Cobb in the backfield, but Rodgers makes the throw harder than it should be and Cobb doesn’t catch it cleanly. They turn the ball over on downs. This snap was a microcosm of Green Bay’s season.
This pass on the next drive featured a Cobb screen, a Cobb fumble and a Cobb injury (I believe this is where his hamstring was aggravated) all wrapped into one. This was September 23rd, and he would not play again until October 28th in Los Angeles.
Upon Cobb’s return, here is a two-man play-action route where Cobb gets free, Rodgers throws the ball off the ear of the DB (it looks a little like his throw against Scandrick) and the Packers gain 18 quick yards. Cobb can definitely catch tight throws.
This was the easiest way to move the chains on second or third and short. Quick and effective, hit Cobb in stride, take eight or nine yards and keep the drive going.
Unfortunately, this play shows us two things we don’t like. One, a safety is able to stay on top of Cobb in a man situation on a vertical and he is never open. And two, he hurts his hamstring and is gone from November 4th to December 2nd. During this time, Green Bay falls out of the playoff race almost completely as they now are left with low-level rookies playing significant roles.
Back on the field, Cobb lines up from the left slot. He runs an out-and-up, then catches a beautiful pass from Rodgers that is right on the money in a short space. Everything is great. He looks explosive and dynamic, like the Randall Cobb of old.
Green Bay’s season was hanging by a thread on this day in Chicago in Week 15, but they still had the slightest chance if they could figure something out here. We don’t have a ton of Randall Cobb tape from 2018 that feels relevant, but this day was shocking. I have no idea what was wrong with Aaron Rodgers, but consistently open players against a Bears defense that was thought to be superb was enough of a shock. Seeing Rodgers miss them so badly was just as shocking. If this day tells us much, it is that Cobb can still get open.
Here, Rodgers ignores an open Jimmy Graham underneath to look for an open Randall Cobb up top. Both times, we must assume the windy city was causing problems. Thank goodness Dak never had this hard a time in a similar situation. It pays to get the benefit of the doubt.
Finally, here is Cobb as the hot receiver with a blitz, uncovering as he goes down the seam for a key third-down conversion. Unfortunately, he also suffered a concussion and missed Week 16 after another run-in with Eddie Jackson.
What did we learn here?
For $5 million, only $2 million of it guaranteed, this has a chance to be a really nice addition for the Cowboys. Cobb is very intelligent, knows what to do when plays break down and is not remotely scared of big moments.
He also has been through some wars and his body is not what it used to be. Perhaps it is an unfortunate series of events, but the more likely answer is this is what the normal decline of a smaller player built on speed looks like. Cobb has played for a long time and taken a lot of hits.
Either way, he is not Cole Beasley. He cannot run option routes all day underneath and uncover like Cole, but he can also run double moves, and Beasley has never shown that.
In other words, he will act as a different club in the bag of Prescott and Kellen Moore. He should present the Cowboys with some real opportunities, and with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, provides Dallas a solid trio of receivers. Beasley was great at one thing. That was a very important thing, but it certainly also could lend to a bland design.
We shall see. But, for someone who thinks Cobb will still have some plays to make, I like this use of funds to try to find a dangerous slot man. In fact, this might be one of the best free-agent signings in the league this year on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
Like so many players in this sport, our ultimate judgment of Cobb’s signing will depend on how often his body can still answer the bell.