New Orleans Saints Tight End Jared Cook
2019 Training Camp Presented by Verizon Post Practice Media Availability
Saturday, July 27, 2019

How would you assess your first two days of camp with a new team so far?
"It's been going well. Just trying to get acclimated to a lot of things. The tempo, this heat, and just kind of carry over where we finished off in OTA's."

Yesterday, Drew Brees was mentioning a budding chemistry between you and him. It was on full display on that deep catch down the right sideline. How would you characterize how your chemistry is so far working with him?
"We're growing and that's all we can do. We're it taking a day at a time and this is the best part now with camp going on to getting to know your teammates and us just learn each other, spending the most time together. That's imperative and that's the only way we're going to do it is to be able to talk to each other, grow a day at a time, and just stay in each other's ear and communicate. It's going well. (Drew) Brees is very vocal and I think that's really good and it makes it easy. It's going well and we're just going to keep getting better at it."

What's the process like for a receiver to get used to a quarterback? I think maybe people think about a quarterback getting used to the way receiver breaks his routes off, but for you is it like a way the ball spins out of his hand and the way it gets to you?
"Absolutely. It is a quarterback's timing. Some quarterbacks deliver the ball earlier, some a little bit later. It is the trajectory of his throw, it is the speed of his throw. The biggest thing you are trying to get to is being on the same page and being able to know what Drew is about to say or know Drew is about to do before he says it or thinks it we are on the same page. It is a difficult thing to get to, but like I said before, that is why you are in camp. You're working towards that and just learning each other." 

You said he's very vocal, has he had to correct you yet?
"Yes, absolutely. He corrects himself. That's just the type of guy he is. He's always in my ear. Whenever you see something that could've been changed or done a little differently, he always tells me and I'm open to it because I've got to get to know how him and Coach (Sean) Payton like how things are ran and done."

It's so early in the installation, you haven't really gotten to the wrinkle section of the playbook, but do you already feel like an indication that they're going to use you in a variety of ways?
"Yes, absolutely. We got a little preview of it in OTA's once we got through some of the deeper installs, but now it's kind of back to square one. Like you said, a lot of those different wrinkles and a lot of different secondary plays are going to go in a little bit later. In OTA's is when we were doing it, it went really well. So we just don't keep building and keep stacking bricks on top of each other."

Drew was talking about a specific route yesterday where it was like something you guys had talked about and then it finally clicked and happened on the field. Can you describe what that kind of process was and just like the conversations you guys have with that?
"I'm not sure exactly what play he was mentioning, but I mean a lot of those things, I think he might've been talking about a basic I was running. A lot of times when you wrap around those basics around those linebackers, those linebackers will squeeze up underneath you to try and take away the throw. He was just telling me like if they squeeze too hard, that first window may be open so maybe throttle in there if you see that linebacker of squeezing in there. When I came back, he was kind of coaching me on it and we were on the same page the next time it happened. It also happened on an out route and also a corner route. When those corners start sinking up under the corner routes, maybe keep it a little bit higher to where he can squeeze his throw in a little bit better. But it's conversations like that that just happen repetitively and all the time."

When you look throughout career as far as YAC, yards after the catch, do you take a lot of pride in that? That's one thing a number of coaches have talked about with Jared Cook is that yeah, you have a nice completion of 15 or 20 yards, but look at the yards after the catch and how much more he brings to the table. 
"YAC is important. It's one of my goals that I set every year. It's one thing that I emphasize in my game every year. I always say how much YAC I want to get per reception and what I want my average to be. It's important for a receiver to understand what it brings to the game to get yards after the catch. That's where most your bulk yardage comes from. It's very important as a piece or element for my game."