Buffalo Bills running back James Cook wants a contract extension and is sharing that information publicly.
It’s been a while since a Buffalo Bills player was publicly negotiating with the team, but running back James Cook added himself to the list this week. Cook isn’t set to become a free agent until next offseason, but he is already throwing salvos at general manager Brandon Beane, and things could get messy.
Earlier this week, Cook took to Instagram to express his desire not just for a new contract, but to be paid $15 million per season. That would put him second in the NFL in terms of annual salary.
Cook then doubled down on the contract demand later on Twitter. When a fan talked up Cook’s game, the Bills RB quoted him with some emojis:
if you think James Cook ain’t worth 15 you must’ve been dropped head first through the table. Pay him.
To which Cook replied with the “100” emoji four times.
James Cook is not worth $15 million per season
Apparently, I have been dropped headfirst through a table… Sure I have always been on “Team Don’t Pay Running Backs” but now he’s up at $15 million?
The top-paid running back in the league is Christian McCaffrey at $19 million per season. Jonathan Taylor makes $14 million, Saquon Barkley slots in at $12.583 million, and Alvin Kamara is $12.25 million. Josh Jacobs is right behind him. After that, you get below $10 million per season.
The problem for Cook is that every running back on that list — every running back that makes more than $9.125 million, actually — is an every-down back. Here are the 2024 snap counts when each player was actually in the lineup by average salary:
- Christian McCaffrey: 75%
- Jonathan Taylor: 80%
- Saquon Barkley: 64%
- Alvin Kamara: 71%
- Josh Jacobs: 63%
- James Conner: 60%
The next player on the list is David Montgomery, part of a shared backfield in Detroit. He played 41% of the snaps for Detroit in 2024. Montgomery makes $9.125 million per season.
Cook played just 48% of the Bills’ snaps in 2025 and topped 50% once after November 10th. (It was the Divisional Round win.)
Cook’s raw numbers and efficiency numbers place him in the league’s top ten running backs, there is no question about that, but that doesn’t mean he’s one of the two best in the league.
How does Devin Singletary factor in here?
The Bills have shown that they will let productive running backs go to other teams instead of paying for them to stay. Singletary signed a one-year, $2.75 million deal in Houston before his current three-year, $16.5 million contract in New York. Assuming they had a chance to match, the Bills didn’t even value their top running back at $3 million.
The Bills’ model under Brandon Beane has been to take a running back in the second or third round every few years. It was Ray Davis in 2024, James Cook in 2022, Zack Moss in 2020, Devin Singletary in 2019. They traded Moss in 2022.
That doesn’t mean Beane doesn’t value running back. He does and was part of several Carolina Panthers front offices that drafted a bunch of running backs high in the draft. But he doesn’t invest cash in second contracts.
How does Dalvin Cook factor into James Cook’s contract extension?
James Cook’s brother, Dalvin, signed his first big contract extension in the NFL in September 2020. It was for five years and $63 million, a pretty nice deal! He was released after three seasons, though, and from that point forward did almost nothing in the league. He had a four-year run among the best in the league, but fell off a cliff.
James could be using Dalvin’s short NFL career as a cautionary tale and that could be why he’s publicly pushing for a contract a year before he’s set to enter free agency.
How much would I give James Cook in a contract extension?
I think I am topping out at $10 million per season for Cook, and that’s taking nothing else into consideration like salary cap space, the construction of the rest of the team, and the relationships in the building.
With the way the Bills have built their team, it’s not time to draft a player yet, but re-signing Ty Johnson to pair with Cook and Davis in 2025 and then see what you want to do with Cook in 2026 is how I would proceed, even if it meant Cook starting training camp on the sidelines.
Spotrac has his market value at $10.2 million per season in a four-year deal. I’d think about doing that, but I am probably passing. I’ll take one year of Cook at $5.265 million in 2025 and take my chances.
Could James Cook hold out if he doesn’t get a contract?
The Bills haven’t had a player hold out in long time, and one of the reasons is the penalties are severe. He can miss the offseason work and cost himself less than $100,000, but once he starts missing training camp, it’s $40k per day since he’s on his rookie contract.
The tactic that’s been more popular recently is the hold in, where a player shows up but sits out practice with nagging “injuries”. They get to talk to the media every day, the brass gets asked questions about why the player is on the exercise bike instead of the field, and there is just more pressure placed by being there instead of out of sight, out of mind.
What about trading James Cook?
If a team came in wanting to trade a second-round pick for Cook before the 2025 draft, I would consider it. I am not giving him away and I’m not looking to move on from him just because he sent a couple tweets in February.
Ashton Jeanty is probably a first-round pick and there are four to seven running backs who could go on Day 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft. There is also a list of free-agent running backs worth exploring. There are options that aren’t as good as James Cook, but would probably be just fine.