Buffalo Bills fans are overlooking the biggest James Cook development of the offseason
Buffalo Bills running back James Cook is coming off the best season of his pro career.
The biggest question surrounding Buffalo Bills running back James Cook ahead of the 2026 season is whether he can replicate his success from last year.
Cook, who will turn 27 in September, had the best season of his career in 2025, rushing for 1,621 yards and 12 touchdowns while catching 33 passes for 291 yards and two touchdowns.
The former Georgia Bulldogs standout is in the prime of his career, but it won’t be easy to put up those kinds of numbers again.
It’s also unclear if Cook will receive over 300 carries again. The Bills, in fact, may try to protect him by spreading the carries around more than they did last season (Cook carried the ball 309 times last season, his previous career high was 237 carries in 2023).
One way Cook could keep his productivity at an elite level while receiving fewer carries is if he’s involved more in the pass game, which seems likely given that Buffalo hired Pete Carmichael Jr this offseason as the team’s new offensive coordinator.
Carmichael is known for heavily using running backs in the pass game.
“Pete Carmichael Jr. is known for this (using running backs in the passing game),” said Bills reporter Sal Capaccio on WGR SportsRadio550 this week. “He worked with LaDainian Tomlinson. He worked with Alvin Kamara. He’s going to have an influence in some sort of some capacity. He’s going to have an influence on the offense.
“And whether that’s James Cook or someone else — which I think that’s the thing to figure out here — I believe they will incorporate the running backs into the passing game more. I believe they will throw running back screen passes sometimes, which we really haven’t seen from this offense very much. So it would stand to reason to me that James Cook will have more of an uptick there. Now, the question would be how much compared to Ty Johnson or Ray Davis? But I think the Pete Carmichael Jr. influence will be directly reflected, and we will see some of that.”
Cook’s career high in receptions came in 2023 when he caught 44 passes. In his penultimate game at Georgia, he led the Bulldogs in receiving with four receptions for 112 yards in a win against Michigan in the College Football Playoff semifinals.
It’s safe to say that Cook is a more than capable receiver out of the backfield.
We don’t necessarily know how it’ll look this fall, but I think it’s very possible that we see Cook’s carries back in the 230-ish range while seeing his usage in the pass game increase significantly.