The Bills found their workhorse and that could be an issue
· Yahoo Sports
This is the third in a 10-part series of questions facing the Buffalo Bills as they head into training camp at St. John Fisher University.
When the Buffalo Bills selected running back James Cook in the second round of the 2022 NFL Draft, it was like buying a used luxury car that had been repossessed less than a year into the lease agreement.
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Cook had almost no mileage on his tires and his engine had hardly been pushed during his career at the University of Georgia. Across parts of four seasons and 50 games, Cook carried just 230 times for 1,503 yards and 14 TDs, and caught 67 passes for 730 yards and six scores for the Bulldogs.
He wasn’t much busier in his rookie season with Buffalo when he played behind incumbent starter Devin Singletary and was on the field for just 25% of the offensive snaps and had 110 touches totaling 687 yards.
But Cook’s usage went way up to 281 touches in 2023 when he took over for Singletary, and after a slight decline to 239 in 2024, Cook became one of the busiest players in the NFL in 2025 on the way to the league rushing title.
His 342 touches were the fourth-most in the NFL, and that included 309 rushing attempts which were the eighth-most in team history. They resulted in 1,621 ground yards and 1,912 yards from scrimmage which were fourth-most in the league, and that was with Cook sitting out most of the meaningless season finale against the Jets.
Cook thrived with the workload, but it is fair to ask whether the Bills can continue to lean on him to that extent as he’s about to enter his age 27 season, playing a position where the life expectancy is shorter than other positions on the team.
“I don't think you ever go into each game with a mindset of like, hey, this is how many carries he's going to have,” said coach Joe Brady, who took over as the offensive coordinator midway through 2023 and tapped into the run game more than his fired predecessor, Ken Dorsey.
“But it does pile up throughout the season, right? And I give him a lot of credit. You go back to the offseason he had last year that he was able to withstand that and you knew going into it, how many times he was going to run the ball. And it wasn't like he's not taking hits.”
How James Cook's workload compares to Bills greats
For comparison, LeSean McCoy’s heaviest workload in Buffalo was 287 carries in 2017, Fred Jackson’s was 237 in 2008, and Marshawn Lynch’s was 280 in 2007. You have to go back to 2005 to find a Bills running back who surpassed Cook’s total last season when Willis McGahee carried 325 times.
There have been only 10 seasons where a Bills’ running back surpassed 300 carries. Thurman Thomas set the record with 355 in 1993 and had 312 in 1992, O.J. Simpson and Travis Henry each had two seasons north of 300, and McGahee, Cook, Antowain Smith and Joe Cribbs had the others.
Cook never seemed to slow down. In back-to-back weeks in December, he ran for 107 yards against the Patriots and 117 against the Browns, then finished with 117 more in the playoff loss to Denver.
“I know it was asked a lot last season,” Brady said of all the carries Cook received. “I would love to be able to get Ray (Davis), Ty (Johnson), and Frank (Gore. Jr.) involved and I hope those opportunities come up this year. James was just playing at such a high level last year. He was in such a rhythm and a routine that I felt confident in him being able to uphold that.”
Davis suffered the most from Cook’s playing increase. As a rookie in 2024 Davis carried 113 times for 442 yards and caught 17 passes for 189 yards, but last year, he had just 58 rushing attempts for 285 yards and 10 receptions for 86 yards.
Johnson’s 2024 and 2025 numbers were similar because he continued to be utilized in third-down and/or passing situations, but this season it might behoove Brady to find a way to get Davis a little more involved to preserve Cook if the Bills make a deep playoff run.
Can the Bills keep James Cook fresh for the long haul?
“I think that's probably a week-to-week thing,” said new Bills offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, though the decision won’t be his with Brady still calling the plays. “I think that's something I've experienced in other places as well, just making sure the week-to-week workload doesn't get too overbearing because you’re going to need these guys down the stretch of the season.”
Carmichael had a similar situation during his many years in New Orleans under coach Sean Payton, first with Mark Ingram and later with Alvin Kamara, but Ingram’s career-high for carries was 288 and Kamara’s was 296.
Cook’s older brother, Dalvin, provides a cautionary tale for what overwork can do, and remember, they share some DNA. Dalvin earned Pro Bowl invitations four straight years from 2019-22 playing for the Vikings where he averaged 311.2 touches. But he played only two more seasons in the NFL with the Jets in 2023, and the Ravens and Cowboys in 2024 and was out of the league by the age of 29.
With Cook's four-year contract extension just kicking in this season, preservation might be something they consider in order to get him to the end of that deal as a still healthy and impactful player.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 37 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at [email protected], and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: The Bills found their workhorse and that could be an issue