Hard to believe former Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook was slotted as high as #2 overall in a lot of NFL mock drafts this past fall. He’s probably 3rd to 4th round at best now as his stock keeps dropping like shares in Twitter.
It’s been a rough stretch lately for Cook in his football career. We start with wondering aloud what he was thinking on the second to last play of the Nebraska game. Then we wonder why he regressed towards the end of his career.
NFL Network Draftnik Mike Mayock did a media call pre-combine and related this interesting anecdote:
“I always like on tape watching how a quarterback reacts after a big hit, a bad sack or a bad interception, especially in a big game, and I think those things are really important. To give you an example, Michigan State-Alabama, watching Connor Cook, semifinal championship game, late first half, 4th down, 10-0, and it probably should be 24-0. But it’s 10-0, late first half, they’re driving. They need at least a field goal.”
“They have to at least kick a field goal, and he threw a bad interception at the end of the half, and Cyrus Jones picked him off, it’s 10-0, and that was the end of the game for them. That was the turning point for me, and they weren’t able to get anything going in the second half. That’s kind of a big moment, and I think you always look at those kind of moments and how kids react.”
On the same call Mayock was asked what he heard in the league about any concerns relating to Connor Cook’s character. Obviously he was not a team captain this year, and that raises a couple questions.
Said Mayock:
“I think he’s a complicated question, and I’ll start with the premise that I think he’s one of the four quarterbacks that has the physical talent to be a first-round draft pick. The second piece of that is, okay, what’s the on-field evaluation, and for me he’s never been a 60 percent completion guy, but part of that is because they throw the football down the field aggressively, and I’d like — for instance, the second half of Michigan State (versus Alabama) I love what he did.”
“He took a beating and kept throwing the ball and kept throwing tough passes down the field and completing them. I really liked — even though I think he was 18 for 39 that game, I liked that game. Then you get to kind of the off-the-field questions and the whole captain thing, and to me it does matter.”
“To some teams and GMs it doesn’t matter that you’re not a captain, but to other teams it does matter. Why didn’t his teammates vote their best player and their quarterback to be their captain and their leader? That’s a legitimate question. And the second question for me is why didn’t he go to the Senior Bowl. If you were healthy, I would think you would have loved to step up to Carson Wentz every day and compete with him and show the world, I’m the guy, not him.
“Who’s this kid from North Dakota State, I’m the guy. I think he could have answered a bunch of those questions in Mobile rather than have to deal with them all this week.”
Unfortunately for Connor Cook, his combine also turned out poorly. Maybe the Senior Bowl really would have been a special chance for him to re-inflate the value of his draft stock.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram