clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Jared Cook was on receiving end of ESPY winning Best Play pass from Aaron Rodgers

New, comments

Though Aaron Rodgers was honored with the ESPY for best play, it was Jared Cook who caught the pass.

Jared Cook spent just one season in Green Bay. He signed on with the Packers on a one-year deal after seven years with the Titans and Rams. If you look at his overall regular season numbers with the Packers, they don’t look great. But if you watched him play, it tells another story.

He came on strong late, catching 324 of his 377 yards in the final five games. Then he caught another 18 passes for 229 yards and 2 touchdowns in the playoffs.

As the games went on, Cook and Aaron Rodgers’ chemistry grew more and more, culminating in an elite performance against the Cowboys in the Division round to send the Packers to the NFC Championship game.

In that game, Cook caught six passes for 103 yards and a touchdown. One of those catches was a sliding sideline grab on a pass from Rodgers which kept the game alive and that play claimed the ESPY Wednesday night for Best play.

Cook just got his feet inbounds, tapping his toes on the sideline to make the 36-yard grab. The Packers had the ball at their own 32-yard-line on 3rd and 20 with the score tied 31-31 and :12 seconds remaining. That catch put them in field goal range at the Dallas 32 with :03 remaining. Then Mason Crosby took the field and connected on a 51-yard field to win the game.

Rodgers took the stage and accepted the ESPY. Among those he thanked was, of course, Jared Cook, saying “There’s a lot of people that go into making a play like that. The offensive line doing a great job getting me outside the pocket, ‘Cookie’ making a great catch there, we miss you buddy already.”

It was Cook, after all, who recently said Carr reminds him a lot of Rodgers. The Raiders signed him in the hopes he would show up with heroics like that for Carr just as he did for Rodgers.