Brandin Cooks Fantasy Outlook in Houston Could Have Him Positioned for a Bounce-Back Season in 2020

It's not often you see a player as good as Brandin Cooks involved in as many trades as he has been. He's played six NFL seasons and has already been traded from the New Orleans Saints to the New England Patriots, from the Patriots to the Los Angeles Rams, and now from the Rams to the Houston Texans.

Trying to fill a void left by DeAndre Hopkins being traded away, Cooks' fantasy football value could get a big boost in 2020.

Brandin Cooks Fantasy Football Value 2020

The first thing that makes this an exciting spot for Cooks is the amount of volume available with Hopkins gone from Houston. Hopkins' 487 targets over the last three years is the most of anyone in the NFL, with only Michael Thomas (481) and Julio Jones (475) joining him with more than 450.

Cooks is far from a 1-to-1 replacement for Hopkins, of course, and some of those looks will be spread around the rest of the offense. But having that much volume up for grabs will let Cooks see more than enough targets to be relevant in fantasy football, especially with the Texans expected to be playing from behind often.

Simply leaving the Rams offense is also going to be a boost for Cooks' expected volume. Competing with Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp made targets hard to come by, as those two combined to soak up 44.6 percent of the Rams' targets in 2019.

Cooks is also always going to be a threat to do huge damage with his targets. He's averaged at least 15.0 yards per receptions in three of the last four seasons, topping 10.0 yards per target in two of those.

Deshaun Watson still has the potential to be one of the league's best quarterbacks with Hopkins out of the picture, and having a great QB throwing him a high volume of targets puts Cooks in a great spot for a bounce-back season in 2020.

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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.