{"id":179800,"date":"2025-07-04T02:53:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T02:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/179800\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T02:53:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T02:53:13","slug":"bills-optimistic-about-james-cook-extension-unclear-if-rb-will-hold-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/179800\/","title":{"rendered":"Bills Optimistic About James Cook Extension; Unclear If RB Will Hold In"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bills have not made significant headway<\/a> in extension negotiations with star running back<\/a> James Cook<\/a>, but the team is still hoping to get a deal done before the regular season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI still think the door is open,\u201d said ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Fowler on the team\u2019s One Bills Live podcast<\/a>. \u201cLast I checked, there wasn\u2019t a lot of progress, but there was still some optimism in the big picture that maybe they could figure something out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cook\u2019s desire for a new contract has been one of the Bills\u2019 main offseason storylines, especially as the team rewarded several other 2022 draftees with long-term extensions. However, those players \u2013 WR Khalil Shakir<\/a>, CB Christian Benford<\/a>, and LB Terrel Bernard<\/a> \u2013 did not land anywhere near the top of their respective positional markets.<\/p>\n

Cook has previously stated a desire to reach $15MM per year on his next contract<\/a>, which would match Derrick Henry<\/a> for the third-highest APY for a running back. Statistically, though, Cook does not appear to belong in that group. He tied Henry and Jahmyr Gibbs<\/a> for the league lead with 16 touchdowns last year, but his 2,131 rushing yards and 4.8 yards per carry since 2023 only rank eighth among all ballcarriers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been ultra productive,\u201d continued Fowler, \u201cbut the only running backs that are really getting paid at a high clip as we\u2019re seeing is the top of the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook skipped the Bills\u2019 voluntary OTAs<\/a>, but participated fully in mandatory minicamp last month<\/a>. There, he also announced his intention to report to training camp, according to The Athletic\u2019s Joe Buscaglia<\/a>, though he did not say if he would participate in practice or stage a \u2018hold-in.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, man. We\u2019ll see when camp comes,\u201d said Cook. Bills general manager Brandon Beane previously expressed confidence<\/a> that Cook would be \u201cready to roll whether there\u2019s a deal or not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bills have not made significant headway in extension negotiations with star running back James Cook, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,2086,7,3027,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-179800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-bills","8":"tag-bills","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-buffalo-bills","11":"tag-buffalobills","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-james-cook","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}