Buffalo Bills running back James Cook III has put together an incredible campaign in 2025, having just claimed the NFL rushing title, finishing with 1,621 rushing yards \u2014 and over the likes of Derrick Henry, Jonathan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey, and Bijan Robinson. In short, Cook has paid massive dividends for the Bills since signing his contract extension last summer.<\/p>\n
As the league\u2019s leading rusher in 2025, does that mean Cook is destined for an All-Pro season? If NFL history is any indicator, the outlook is good for Cook. In the last 24 NFL seasons, 23 of 24 rushing title holders were also named All-Pro. The lone season where the winner of the rushing title wasn\u2019t named All-Pro in that span came in 2017, when Kareem Hunt led the league in rushing yards, but was passed over for All-Pro by Todd Gurley and Le\u2019Veon Bell.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the top three rushers of the 2025 NFL regular season match up in one regard with the top three rushers of that 2017 campaign. In 2017, Hunt rushed for 22 yards more than Gurley, and 36 yards more than Bell. In 2025, Cook out-rushed Henry by 26 yards, and Taylor by 36. The 2017 and 2025 NFL seasons are the only instances to this point where the top rushers were all within 50 yards of one another.<\/p>\n
Does that mean Cook could be looking at a fate similar to Hunt, and be on the outside looking in at First-Team All-Pro for 2025? Time will tell, but Cook\u2019s overall stat line is too impressive to easily ignore, and helped pave the way to this third-consecutive Pro Bowl selection:<\/p>\n
309 carries for 1,621 yards (5.2 ypc) with 12 rushing touchdowns; 33 receptions (40 targets) for 291 yards and two receiving touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Cook joins NFL Hall of Fame running back O.J. Simpson as the only Bills players to lead the NFL in rushing yards in a single season. Simpson accomplished the feat four separate times, in 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1976. Bills legend Cookie Gilchrist led the AFL in rushing for two consecutive seasons, during the 1962 and 1964 AFL campaigns. Gilchrist was the first player in AFL history to rush for 1,000-plus yards (1,096), doing so in his first season with the Bills \u2014 an effort that won him AFL MVP.<\/p>\n
NFL Hall of Fame running back Thurman Thomas never led the NFL in rushing yards in any of his 12 years with Buffalo, but he did lead the league in scrimmage yards for four consecutive seasons, from 1989 through 1992. Running back Fred Jackson led the NFL in combined net yards during the 2009 NFL season, when he gained 1,062 rushing yards, 371 receiving yards, 69 punt return yards, and 1,014 kick return yards.<\/p>\n
Cook has proven indispensable to Buffalo\u2019s offense in 2025, and the increased workload has only made him a better player. In forming a dynamite pairing with quarterback Josh Allen, Cook has become one of the NFL\u2019s true elite featured running backs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buffalo Bills running back James Cook III has put together an incredible campaign in 2025, having just claimed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,1622,2086,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-658193","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-buffalo-bills-opinion","12":"tag-buffalobills","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115847717839518524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658193","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=658193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}