Bills wide receiver Brandin Cooks sat down in the studio with Good Morning Football’s Kyle Brandt and Mike Garafolo Thursday morning and dished plenty about Buffalo in what has been a momentous week for the franchise.
On Sunday, the Bills lost their Divisional Round game to the Broncos in overtime, with Cooks’ non-catch one of the most controversial plays of the game. On Monday, head coach Sean McDermott was fired.
Cooks was adamant that he held onto Josh Allen’s pass, saying, “At the end of the day, it was a catch.” The receiver said he felt like he let Allen down and expressed shock and surprise at McDermott’s firing, which he learned about through social media.
Yet that was just the start of the drama. Cooks also offered fascinating perspective on one of the players dragged into McDermott’s firing, fellow WR Keon Coleman. On Wednesday, when general manager Brandon Beane was asked about Coleman’s development after a disappointing second season, Bills owner Terry Pegula stepped in, running cover for Beane and saying the former coaching staff pushed for the Coleman pick.
Cooks heard Pegula’s comments about Coleman and was asked by Brandt whether the young receiver might be compelled to ask for a trade after it appeared he’d been thrown under the bus during the news conference.
“When you hear something like that, you’re like, ‘Well, am I wanted?’ That’s the truth, as a player,” Cooks said. “Because typically you don’t hear those things, but when you hear it, you’re like, ‘Well, am I wanted? And if not, what do I do?’
“But if it’s like, ‘We still want you, but we gotta figure this thing out,’ that’s when you put that chip on your shoulder and you go to work and prove yourself right. I’ve always been a big believer in not proving people wrong but proving yourself right on what you can do.”
Cooks signed with the Bills on Nov. 25 to help the Bills at one of their neediest positions, partly because of their lack of trust in Coleman. But Cooks also viewed his job as trying to get the best out of a young player who had a strong training camp and a good Week 1 performance before falling off.
Cooks doesn’t know what Coleman’s intentions are but believes he’s still capable of fulfilling his promise.
“I’m definitely in touch with Keon,” Cooks said. “When I got to Buffalo, that was a guy I was going to gravitate towards to help out. I think Keon can play this game at a high level, I really do. He’s going to continue to grow.
“I think he’s also misunderstood. He’s a young kid, right? He’s still trying to figure it out. For me, I’ll take that and say, ‘How can I help this kid grow and be the guy they want him to be?’ Because obviously, there’s talent there. The guy can make plays. I think he’ll continue to grow, and I think he has been.”
Even though Cooks was teammates with Coleman for only a few months, he said he saw growth in that time.
“When I got there, to see where he was Day 1 to the end of this season … you know, he’s in there at 6, 7 in the morning, working out. He’s becoming a pro, learning those things,” Cooks said.
First, the Bills need to find a new head coach. Then, they can figure out if Coleman still fits in their plans, assuming he even wants to remain in Buffalo. But Cooks believes there’s a path to making that work.
“I think all it takes sometimes is, [someone saying] ‘Hey, let me take you under my wing and kind of show you the way,’” Cooks said.