Coming out of his junior season with the Tigers, quarterback Brady Cook started to get a lot of national recognition.
He entered his senior season on the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award watch list as he was projected to be one of the best senior quarterbacks in the country.
But his senior season didn’t measure up, largely due to a couple of injuries near the midpoint of the year, but also because of some regression in the entire Tiger offense and issues with deep passing early in the season.
And his draft stock took a hit throughout the year.
By the Tigers’ matchup with Iowa in the Music City Bowl, it seemed Cook would be an un-drafted free agent at best.
“I feel good about what I’ve put on tape,” Cook said. “What I’ve shown this last few months.”
But as he got fully healthy and he got a couple of chances to show off for scouts and national media in All-Star games, his stock began to rise once again.
Book shined in the Shrine Bowl and the Hula Bowl as he worked with new teammates and showed off his work ethic through weeks of practice with scouts.
“It was a grind, you know, you spend a week out there and really, the biggest thing I probably took away from it was just the opportunity to learn installs for a week,” Cook said. “You know, NFL installs. Get that exposure with NFL coaches, sit in those meeting rooms, learn the playbooks, the verbiage, the concepts and obviously, you know, practice throughout the week.”
Then he got to the NFL Combine and showed the athleticism Mizzou fans got used to seeing the past few years.
Most quarterbacks have stopped participating in the combine other than throwing routes, but Cook took to the drills and shined with a 4.59 40-yard dash for the top quarterback time, a 37-inch vertical jump (beating the second-best quarterback by 5 inches) and a 10-foot, 8-inch broad jump (9 inches more than the second-place quarterback). He also took the top spot in the 3-cone drill (7.01 seconds) and the shuttle (4.17 seconds).
“I had to hurry to get my body ready, to get my legs ready,” Cook said. “... Had a great day at the combine. It was a lot of fun, Lucas Oil (Stadium) was awesome. It was an incredible experience, you know, honestly, just what you dream of as a kid watching them on TV. I’ll never forget that day.”
Then Cook returned to the home he grew up wanting to be at as he came back to Columbia for pro day.
He did not participate in drills at pro day, but did throw routes to a number of his former teammates, going 44-of-47 with three drops as he stayed on target throughout.
“I thought it went smooth, I thout it went to plan,” Cook said. “Not a ton of balls on the ground, clean, pretty good.”
At this point, Cook seems to be the next in a ling of Missouri quarterbacks turning into long-term NFL backups, but he brings an athletic upside that could earn him an opportunity to prove himself and the warrior mentality Mizzou fans got used to seeing the past three ...
