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Green Bay Packers: Randall Cobb Week 1 Outlook

By Kevin Parvizi

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Last season, the Green Bay Packers made mincemeat out of the rival Chicago Bears in both of their meetings, defeating one of 2014’s most dysfunctional and disappointing franchises 38-17 and 55-14 in a comfortable season sweep. Thanks to new head coach John Fox and offensive coordinator Adam Gase, the Bears are optimistic that they’ll be more threatening to the NFC North’s Super Bowl contenders, and they’ll get their chance to show it when they take on Aaron Rodgers, Randall Cobb, and the still-elite Packers offense in Week 1.

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With Jordy Nelson done for the year with a torn ACL, the health of Rodgers, Cobb, and Eddie Lacy has become more important than ever. The Packers can’t afford to lose a member of their offensive triumvirate for any noteworthy period of time in 2015, and even though they could beat the Bears without Cobb’s help in Week 1, having him out on the field takes so much pressure off of this team to get their season started on the right foot.

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After it was initially feared that Cobb would be questionable for Week 1, FOX Sports’s Alex Marvez reported that all of the “indicators” have the team’s new No. 1 receiver suiting up for the battle at Soldier Field. Cobb, as per Marvez, “should be good to go”, and that’s enough to make the AC sprain a minor note.

Perhaps Cobb will deal with some pain in Week 1, but there’s just about no way he misses a rivalry game to open the season. He’s also been especially productive against the Bears secondary, because after catching seven passes for 113 yards and two touchdowns against them in Week 4, he turned in a 4-72-1 line in the team’s second meeting. Cobb burned them with ease, and there isn’t a defensive back on the Bears who can contain him. Of course, there are few defensive backs around the league who can match the speed, change-of-direction skills, and YAC ability that Cobb brings to the table.

The crazy thing is that Cobb put up a combined 185 receiving yards on the Bears in two 2014 games despite only being targeted 15 times in both of those games combined. Nelson’s absence means that Cobb could even have 15 targets in just one game. His injury could prevent such a gaudy number from transpiring in Week 1, but if the Packers young receivers have some early issues, then Rodgers could look to him early and often.

Before we go around projecting a monster performance from Cobb in Week 1, it’s important to note that he only received 15 targets in those two games against the Bears last season because the Packers were just too good. Since they jumped out to such big leads and made so many splash plays (Cobb averaged 16.8 yards per reception against Chicago in 2014), there was no reason, for example, to give him more than six targets in their 55-14 blowout victory.

Kyle Fuller is healthy and ready to roll after suffering an injury that derailed his rookie season, but prior to the injury, Fuller looked like one of the best defensive players in the class. The Bears would be wise to put him on Cobb inside and outside, because he’s the only defensive back on a team with enough speed, athleticism, physicality, and short-area quickness to have a prayer at stopping a 5’10”, 192-pound beast who is capable of scoring 12 touchdowns in a season.

Based on the fact that Randall Cobb had no trouble bringing down both of the passes thrown at him in Fuller’s coverage for 17 yards when he took on the former Virginia Tech star in Week 4 (numbers courtesy of Pro Football Focus), he might not be sweating this matchup too much. But Fuller could pester the potentially ailing 25-year-old right off the bat, and he did a great job of limiting Cobb to just three yards after the catch.

With a combined 20 touchdowns in the past two seasons and at least 14 yards per reception, Cobb is a shifty, playmaking machine who may have been just as important to the Green Bay Packers success on offense in 2014 as Nelson. In fact, two ESPN writers covering other NFC North teams believe Cobb is the better receiver overall, so take that as you will.

Last season, Cobb averaged 92.5 yards per game and 1.5 touchdowns with 5.5 receptions in his two outings against the Bears, and he put up 5.7 catches for 80.4 yards and 0.75 touchdowns per game throughout the entire season. His injury shouldn’t hurt his Week 1 production much, but he could get a boost if Ty Montgomery and Jeff Janis have some issues with staying on the same page as Rodgers.

Whatever the case, seven receptions for 90 yards and a touchdown are numbers that Cobb can reasonably expect to have in his first game in 2015 as the Packers No. 1 target.

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