Rams have big plans for Jared Cook

The St. Louis Rams have big plans for Jared Cook, as you might imagine. Jeff Fisher teased at a major role for the newly acquired tight end over the weekend at a charity golf outing for the Heimerdinger Foundation.

Fisher talked to the Tennessean about the former Titan:

"He's obviously got years of experience under his belt, he understands the league, he understands defenses and he's picked things up really well," Fisher said. "We're excited about creating mismatches, and offensive success these days is about creating mismatches."

Needless to say, Fisher feels like Cook is a much more complete player than when he coached him in Tennessee. Cook's potential largely went unused in that offense, before and after Fisher's time there. Having Jake Locker under center doesn't exactly help a tight end or receiver either.

None of this is a surprise. The Rams spent a boatload of money, $35 million with $19 million guaranteed, to sign Cook this year. He and Sam Bradford have been spending time together since March, prior to the team's OTAs.

The guy is going to be counted on to improve a chronically underwhelming Rams offense.

So what's new here? Well, Fisher teased a little about where the Rams could be using Cook this year.

"He's going to play all over the place," Fisher said. "We've even got him in the backfield, so we've got some good things for him."

We knew he was lining up some as a receiver, along with the usual tight end stuff. But in the backfield too? Surely he's not talking about using him as a fullback. No, I suspect based on this you can foresee Cook catching a few passes from out of the backfield. And who knows what else!

I'd look for the Rams' play action numbers to shoot up this year with guys like Cook and Tavon Austin on the roster. That's a good thing.

The Rams offense averaged 7.9 yards per play on play action last season, 8.1 yards per play when they threw it. Compare that to the rest of the playbook when the Rams averaged a meager 5.6 yards. According to Football Outsiders, the offense had a DVOA of 24.7 percent on play action and just 2.8 percent on the rest (DVOA is an efficiency stat, so higher numbers are better for offense).

You can be forgiven if in October you don't even recognize the product on the field, the one so effectively moving the ball ... let's hope.