New Orleans Saints: Jared Cook throws shade at his former team

The tight end position will look different for the New Orleans Saints this year, as Jared Cook — their starting tight end of the past two years — signed with the Chargers over the offseason.

Saints fans weren’t particularly saddened by Cook’s departure, as his numbers declined from his 2019 season, and with Adam Trautman joining the team as a third-round pick, now was the time to push him into that starting role.

It didn’t seem like there was any bad blood between the Saints and Cook but he made it a point to bring up his former team while speaking to the media on Tuesday (Quote provided by John Sigler of Saints Wire):

"“Just seeing the talent we have here at receiver, it’s just as good, probably better talent here than we had in New Orleans,” Cook said Tuesday during a Periscope interview with Los Angeles media."

This was obviously a dig at the Saints, who opted not to re-sign Cook but at the same time, is he really that far off? The Saints don’t have great talent at receiver outside of Michael Thomas and while the Chargers aren’t stacked at the position, they have Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, and Jalen Guyton as their three main options compared to Thomas, Tre’Quan Smith, and Marquez Callaway of the Saints.

Former Saints TE Jared Cook said the Chargers have more talent at receiver.

I understand that Saints fans could feel disrespected by Cook throwing unnecessary shade at the last team he was on but his comments weren’t untrue. New Orleans hasn’t made it a point to prioritize the depth at wide receiver and it came back to haunt them last year when Thomas went down.

Despite that, the Saints didn’t sign a receiver in free agency and waited until the seventh round to draft one. It was a big need for this team and they failed to really address it.

That being said, Cook didn’t really need to make this comment. It seemed unnecessary and just a way to taunt his former team when his production wasn’t worthy of signing him to a new deal.