Brady Cook: Career Stats, NFL Journey, and 2026 Outlook

Brady Cook – The Undrafted Missouri QB Who Became a Jets Starter

Brady Cook was born October 12, 2001, in St. Louis, Missouri. He’s 6-foot-2, 215 pounds, wears number 4 for the New York Jets, and signed with the team as an undrafted free agent in April 2025. By December of that year he was starting NFL games. That’s the short version. The longer version involves five years at Missouri, a streak that broke an SEC record, four starts behind one of the league’s most chaotic offensive situations, and a 2026 training camp where he’s fighting to stay on a roster that just drafted his replacement second overall.

From Chaminade Prep to the Top of Missouri’s Depth Chart

Cook grew up watching Missouri football. He committed to Mizzou as a sophomore at Chaminade College Preparatory School in Creve Coeur before the coaching staff had fully stabilized – “a lot of uncertainty around the program,” he said at his Senior Day press conference in 2024, “and I had a vision. I believed it. I could see it.” His mother, Amy Cook, played soccer at Truman State University. His father Jim played football. The athletic background runs deep in the family.

At Chaminade, Cook was also the team’s punter – averaging 48.3 yards per punt his senior year, which led the state. His senior passing numbers: 197 of 336 for 3,194 yards and 33 touchdowns. Rivals ranked him the number one quarterback prospect in Missouri. On national boards he landed as a three-star recruit, which set the floor for the underdog framing that would follow him through college and into the pros.

Five Years at Missouri – The Full College Career

Cook redshirted in 2020 and appeared in three games, throwing for 72 yards and one touchdown. He entered 2021 as the backup to Connor Bazelak. When Bazelak struggled and later got hurt, Cook stepped in – first against Georgia (78 yards in a 43-6 loss, not exactly a coming-out party), then in the Armed Forces Bowl against Army, where he threw for 238 yards and a touchdown while adding 53 rushing yards and another score on the ground. That dual-threat element became a defining characteristic of his game.

Here’s the year-by-year passing breakdown from his time at Missouri:

Career totals: 9,251 passing yards and 50 touchdown passes. He finished with a 26-13 record as a starter – second most wins in Missouri program history, behind only Chase Daniel’s 30. He’s also one of just a handful of Missouri quarterbacks to put up 9,000+ passing yards and 1,000+ rushing yards in a career.

2022 – The Season He Almost Beat the Number One Team in the Country

The game people still talk about from Cook’s 2022 season happened in week two. Missouri had Georgia – the reigning national champions, ranked number one in the country – down 22-12 heading into the fourth quarter. Cook finished with 192 yards and a touchdown. Georgia scored 14 unanswered points to win 26-22. Close isn’t the same as winning, but that game changed how Missouri fans perceived Cook. He wasn’t just a placeholder.

He ended the 2022 regular season with 2,739 yards, 14 touchdowns, and seven interceptions, adding 585 rushing yards and six scores on the ground. Missouri went 6-6 in the regular season and played in the Gasparilla Bowl. Not a headline year, but it was the year he locked down the starting job for good.

2023 – His Best Season, and a Record That Rarely Gets Mentioned

The 2023 season was Cook at his best. Missouri went 10-2 in the regular season, won the Cotton Bowl against Ohio State, and Cook threw for over 3,300 yards with 21 touchdowns against just four interceptions. He posted a career-high 411 passing yards against LSU. In week three he put up 356 yards and three total touchdowns to beat 15th-ranked Kansas State 30-27 – an upset that proved the Tigers were legitimately good, not just statistically inflated.

The record that doesn’t come up enough: Cook threw 365 consecutive passes without an interception spanning from October 22, 2022 through October 7, 2023. That broke the SEC record. For a quarterback whose critics always pointed to decision-making as a concern, going that long without a pick is hard to dismiss.

Wide receiver Luther Burden III – who went in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft – was Cook’s primary target during this run. The two became just the third quarterback-receiver duo in Missouri history to combine for 20 touchdown passes, joining Chase Daniel with Jeremy Maclin and Chase Coffman in that group. The Cotton Bowl appearance was Missouri’s best season in over a decade, and Cook was the engine.

2024 – Quieter Stats, Louder Finish

The 2024 numbers dropped – 2,535 yards, 11 touchdowns, two interceptions across 11 starts. Missouri faced a harder schedule that included losses to Texas A&M, Alabama, and South Carolina. Cook dealt with injuries. What he didn’t do was lose his starting job or his team’s trust.

He closed his college career with a Music City Bowl win over Iowa on December 30 – 287 passing yards, 54 rushing yards, named the bowl’s offensive MVP. Missouri won. Cook was a two-time contributor to back-to-back 10-win seasons. That’s not a small thing for a program that had been irrelevant for most of the previous decade.

NFL Draft Process, Combine Numbers, and Why He Went Undrafted

Cook participated in the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, ran a 4.59 in the 40-yard dash, and measured in at 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds. He also played in the Hula Bowl on January 11 in Orlando and the East-West Shrine Bowl on January 20 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Scouting reports consistently identified the same things: quick release, solid arm strength on off-platform throws, real short-area athleticism. The concerns were equally consistent – tendency to hold the ball too long under pressure, mechanical breakdown when the pocket collapsed, average decision-making in tight windows. He was projected everywhere from a late-round pick to a priority UDFA. He ended up as the latter.

The New York Jets signed him immediately after the 2025 draft. A priority UDFA signing means more guaranteed money and a clearer commitment from the team’s coaching staff than a standard post-draft free agent signing – the Jets weren’t just filling a practice squad spot, they were betting he could compete for a roster place.

The 2025 Jets Season – From Practice Squad to Starting QB

Cook’s preseason was genuinely solid. He completed close to 66% of his passes in exhibition play and beat out former UFL MVP Adrian Martinez for a roster spot. He wasn’t expected to play in regular season games. The Jets had Justin Fields and Tyrod Taylor as their options under center.

Then Fields and Taylor both got hurt.

Ian Rapoport reported in December that Cook would start against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 15, and he made four starts total – against Jacksonville, the New Orleans Saints, the New England Patriots, and the Buffalo Bills in the season finale. His first career touchdown pass went to wide receiver Adonai Mitchell for nine yards. His full 2025 regular-season line:

Those numbers are bad. But the situation they came out of was also genuinely chaotic. Cook was throwing to receivers signed off the street, operating behind a fractured roster in the final weeks of a lost season. That’s not an excuse – it’s context that changes how you read the line.

The Sack Rate Problem – and What the Data Actually Shows

The statistic that defined Cook’s 2025 season more than any other: a 53.1% pressure-to-sack rate. The league average that year was 17.7%. Cook tripled it. Against the Saints in one game alone, he took eight sacks on 11 pressured dropbacks – the expectation on that volume of pressure was roughly two sacks. He took four times that many.

What makes this worth examining carefully is that the Jets’ offensive line graded 15th in the NFL that season in pass protection according to PFF – right at average. The sack problem wasn’t the blockers. Cook, Justin Fields, and Tyrod Taylor all had pressure-to-sack rates above the league average, but Cook’s was in its own category. He was holding the ball too long, consistently, and it cost him.

PFF graded him 32.4 overall and 32.7 in passing – last among 43 qualified quarterbacks. He recorded one big-time throw against 13 turnover-worthy plays across 179 dropbacks. His average depth of target was 5.9 yards, his average time to throw was 2.71 seconds. Every number points to the same issue: processing speed under pressure. That’s coachable, in theory, but it’s also the thing scouts flagged before he was ever drafted.

Where Cook Stands Heading Into 2026 Training Camp

The Jets used the second overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft on a quarterback. Cook is not the starter and won’t be. He re-signed with New York on a one-year deal worth $840,000 and enters training camp as the fourth quarterback on the depth chart, competing for a backup roster spot.

The honest assessment: success for Cook in 2026 isn’t about becoming a franchise quarterback. It’s about proving he belongs in an NFL quarterback room at all. He’s shown enough physical tools – decent size, 4.59 speed, arm talent for off-platform throws – that coaches haven’t moved on. What he needs to show this summer is that he can function within the structure of a pro offense, get the ball out on time, and stop manufacturing sack opportunities out of situations that didn’t require them.

For an undrafted player, making four NFL starts in your rookie year and re-signing with the same team is not a failure. It’s evidence of something. The Jets wouldn’t have brought him back if they saw nothing. Whether that something translates into a career backup spot or a longer run elsewhere depends entirely on what he does between now and the end of preseason.

Brady Cook – Personal Background

Cook is from St. Louis, the son of Jim and Amy Cook. His mother played soccer at Truman State University. His sister is Alex Cook. He studied Business at the University of Missouri. His girlfriend, Carli Schieferle, has been with him since high school. He’s been with the Jets organization since April 2025 and his Instagram account (@bradycook) sits around 48,000 followers – his bio reads “QB @nyjets // Missouri Alum // STL.”

One small detail that doesn’t fit the standard football prospect template: Cook also handled punting duties in high school. That kind of football IQ – the willingness to do whatever the team needs, across specialties – tends to show up in players who stick around NFL rosters longer than their draft status would suggest. Whether that holds for Cook is still an open question going into his second professional training camp.