Buffalo Rumblings
Ultimately, Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane knew had but one choice: Get to the finish line on a new contract with running back James Cook. Beane understood the importance of moving forward with Cook because, as he stated, “he’s got a skill set that we wanted to maintain and keep with this offense.”As a former draft pick of the Bills, Cook has shown immense growth since entering the league in 2022.
To that end, Cook decided it was time to advocate for himself publicly, intent on landing a new contract (extension with Buffalo or otherwise) ahead of the 2025 NFL season. Cook played it smart, showing up for mandatory minicamp, then only heading to “hold-in” status for the last week of training camp at St. John Fisher University as well the team’s first preseason game. Many took exception to that move, but in the end One Bills Drive wanted their superstar running back in-house for the long haul.
Regarding the money spent, Beane isn’t necessarily worried about snap counts or pigeonholing Cook into workhorse back status, telling reporters:
“You know, we like what he provides and we do see him as a three-down-type player. And, we think he could take more, but we also wanna use our other weapons and keep him as fresh as possible.”
When asked if there was concern about Cook’s contract situation becoming a distraction Beane admitted there was, but that ultimately both sides handled it well:
“(H)onestly I was worried about that Josh, I really was. But I think our team, you know, really handled it maybe, you know, we’ve been here a while. You know, obviously we’ve been through things in the past, things that happened, distractions… you know the core of this team, yes there’s new players every year, but I think the core of this team, you know, knew what this was about and that everyone was level-headed. And, yes, James was not on the practice field, but he was at walk-throughs, he was at meetings, and he was — he wasn’t just there physically, like, he was engaged in those things and engaged with his teammates.”
Again, Beane knew what he hoped to accomplish with Cook, even after having to “push pause to focus on the draft and other things” before the team “would try to revisit when (they) got to training camp.” Ever the straight-shooter, Beane stuck true to his word:
“Love Jimbo. I’m so proud of where he has grown, you know, on and off the field from the day we drafted him to now rewarding him with this extension. There was never a case of not wanting to extend him, it just, you know, sometimes these things are hard, and trying to get on the same page of what we could make work and, you know, what they felt, you know, would make them happy on their end.”
In the end, it was going to take one key concession from Cook, what was participating...
