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OVER/UNDER WITH NICK UNDERHILL

also was in Houston before the team landed C.J. Stroud, then spent the last two years in Dallas. But this offseason, he got the opportunity to come back to a place he still holds close to his heart, and he couldn’t say no when the team offered him a two-year deal. “It’s fun to be back,” Cooks said. “Full circle moment.” The amount of time that has passed since his last season here, back in 2016, isn’t lost on him. The reminders are hard to miss. “I wasn’t married and didn’t have kids back then,” Cooks said. “Now, I’ve got a wife and three kids. So, I think that alone is something special, to be back where it all started.” Cooks looks young in the commercials he and Donny Rouse shot for Rouses Markets back in 2014 and 2015; he has a twinkle in his eye and the youthful face of someone who is just stepping out into the world. He became an adult between then and now. Now, he has some age and wisdom on his face. He looks like someone you can go to for advice and guidance. You see the wins and the weight of the losses and all the years between when you look into his eyes. And that’s a good thing. The Saints are hoping to harvest those lessons and make him the leader of the offense now that he’s back. And make no mistake: People are excited to have him here, and the team feels like it got a steal this offseason by signing Cooks. But before we get into the off-field chatter, let’s start with the obvious: The Saints badly needed help at wide receiver. Chris Olave is a star, no doubt. And Rashid Shaheed has speed to burn and endless potential. Those two could theoretically be a dynamic one-two punch, but the team didn’t have much beyond them. So, they went out and got Cooks this offseason. He's a little older now — almost 32, to be specific. And his last 1,000-yard season was in 2021. But when you see him at practice, his speed still stands out in a group of fast people. If he’s lost a step, you don’t really notice, because his feet still move too fast to really see when they hit the ground.

by Nick Underhill The last time Brandin Cooks was here, the Saints were at the end of one of their roughest chapters in recent history and were just starting to figure things out; the team is hoping they can figure things out again. Wide receiver Cooks is returning home after a decade to find the team in a similar spot to where it was when he left. New Orleans traded him right before the transformational 2017 draft that saw the team end up with players like Marshon Lattimore and Alvin Kamara, and the team actually used the pick it acquired for Cooks to draft another one of those franchise-changing players, offensive tackle Ryan Ramczyk. S o, instead of being part of that turnaround and enjoying what felt like a weekly celebration in the Superdome doing Choppa Style and dancing in the locker room with his teammates after every game, he spent the next decade playing for other teams. Some of those years were good. He played for New England and Los Angeles. But he

There’s been some talk that what the Saints are missing is a big receiver, and that having three guys who are each about six feet tall and 180 pounds won’t work; Cooks isn’t buying that noise. He’s heard it, but he thinks this group of players — himself, Olave and Shaheed — are going to prove the naysayers wrong.

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