St. Louis Rams: Case Keenum Will Give Jared Cook a Boost

After starting 2015 with a 4-5 record including two straight losses, the St. Louis Rams have decided to make a quarterback change. Rams head coach Jeff Fisher announced that the Rams will bench Nick Foles in favor of Case Keenum for the team’s Week 11 game against the Baltimore Ravens (via NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal). While Keenum may be unlikely to turn the Rams into an offensive powerhouse, his presence behind center may be a benefit for St. Louis’ talented tight end Jared Cook.

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The Rams currently rank 30th in offensive yards and 31st in scoring despite having one of the league’s top rushing attacks, headed by Offensive Rookie of the Year candidate Todd Gurley. The Rams have managed only 1,608 yards and 7 touchdowns through the air through nine games this year, the worst in the NFL.

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After trading for quarterback Nick Foles in the offseason and signing him to a contract extension, St. Louis is clearly unhappy with his league-worst production levels. Foles’ QBR of 34.15 is 33rd of 33 players with enough passes to qualify for the statistic.

What this lack of production has allowed defenses to do is key on Todd Gurley and the Rams rushing attack, and opposing defenses have held Gurley under 100 yards on the ground each of the last two games, after he averaged 142 yards per game through his first four career starts. The Rams are hoping Case Keenum can give an infusion of life to their offense, and in particular their passing game.

While they’re hoping for this infusion of life, the team is undoubtedly slightly reserved in their expectations, given Keenum’s career to this point. Through 10 career starts, Keenum is averaging 220 yards per game, and has tossed 11 touchdowns to 8 interceptions while completing 55% of his passes. While these numbers aren’t horrific, they don’t give us much reason to believe Keenum will give a big boost to St. Louis’ pass-catchers.

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Looking a little bit closer into the numbers, however, gives us a reason to believe that Keenum may in fact give a boost to one pass-catcher in particular: Jared Cook. The St. Louis tight end has had a bit of a disappointing season so far, catching only 22 passes for 290 yards and failing to find the end zone at all. After becoming the team’s clear No. 1 tight end this year, many hoped Cook would finally have a truly dominant season, but this has yet to happen.

Case Keenum may very well help Cook to truly emerge however, and looking at Keenum’s stats from when he started at Houston should give Cook hope. In his 9 career starts (excluding the game Keenum was knocked out of due to injury) Keenum has averaged 50 yards per game to his tight ends, and that was when playing with the trio of Garrett Graham, Ryan Griffin, and C.J. Fiedorowicz in Houston.

In the six games Garret Graham played with Keenum, Graham totaled 306 yards and 1 score, better numbers than Cook has managed through nine games this season. Even more exciting for Cook fans is the 8.3 targets per game that Graham saw while playing with Keenum. Cook is seeing less than 5 targets per game so far this year. Clearly Keenum likes to pass to his tight ends, and knows how to facilitate productivity at the position. He helped Garrett Graham to his best career game, when he caught 7 passes for 136 yards and a score.

The other thing Keenum likes to do, is target his best weapon. When Keenum was in Houston, his No. 1 receiver was Andre Johnson, and Johnson thrived with Keenum under center. Through nine games with Keenum, Johnson averaged 94 yards per game and had 6 touchdown receptions. All of this came while averaging 11 targets per game. Keenum target Johnson on 1/3 of his pass attempts through those nine games

While this would seem to suggest that the Rams most targeted receiver Tavon Austin would see a boost, it’s hard to compare the 5’9″ 174lb speedster Austin to the 6’3″ 220lb Andre Johnson when considering who Keenum is likely to target. The next thought is that Keenum will look more to Kenny Britt, and while this is certainly possible, I have a hard time imaging Britt as a reliable target as he’s only caught 47% of the passes thrown his way this year.

Instead, I think Keenum will combine both his tendency to throw to tight ends and his tendency to focus on one particular receiver to make Jared Cook the team’s top weapon in the passing game. In his career, Cook has seen 10+ targets only five times, but in those games he averaged 83 yards and caught 2 touchdowns. If Cook sees a consistently high workload, he will be able to produce at a consistently high level.

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Cook’s 13.2 yards per reception are the fourth most among tight ends this season, showing that if he is given a larger workload, he can be one of the league’s premiere players at the position. Case Keenum should rely heavily on his big tight end in the passing game, and that could make 2015 the best year of Jared Cook’s career.