Buffalo Bills running back James Cook is the NFL’s reigning rushing champ, and we’ve hardly spent any time this offseason on his future in Joe Brady’s offense as one of the league’s most efficient ground-game workhorses.
Frankly, there’s essentially been no conversation on Buffalo’s running back room over the past few months, and it’s the team’s only completely unchanged position group from a season ago — no adds, no subtractions (if we’re not counting fullback Reggie Gilliam’s departure eastward).
In 2025, as the Bills passing offense needed to exert considerable effort to even approach productivity of previous seasons in the Josh Allen era, Buffalo was fortunate to have Cook to lean on throughout his spectacular year that ended with the rushing-yard crown.
His 309 carries were the most by a Bills runner since Travis Henry in 2003 and the ninth-most in a single season in team history. Cook’s 95.4 rushing yards per game from 2025 stand alone in fourth place for the Bills all-time.
But what is done is done, and it’s time we project forward for Buffalo’s superstar back. We’re going to actively spin it forward here at Buffalo Rumblings. Often.
How effective should we expect Cook to be in 2026, after over 300 carries with more than 1,600 yards and 12 rushing scores last regular season?
To establish a baseline, I compiled running back seasons since 2020 factoring in age, career workload, and productivity that were the most similar to Cook as he stands right now, entering his Age 27 season following his 2025 that led to a second-team All-Pro distinction.
These were the five best overall “matches” for Cook when considering all those factors.
- Dalvin Cook, 2020
- Derrick Henry, 2020
- Alvin Kamara, 2022
- Josh Jacobs, 2023
- Christian McCaffrey, 2023
Certainly I could’ve (and normally would’ve) expanded to a larger sample — checked further back in time — but with the way the running back position has rapidly changed in the NFL over the past decade, using examples from ball-carriers in the mid 2010s did not feel all that applicable to the game today.
Here are the results of those seasons for the running backs most similar to Cook entering the 2026 campaign with the Bills:
(Kamara did not have Cook volume — in fact, he’s never had a 1,000-yard season to my bewilderment — but his efficiency and career carry total were too close to not include.)
For context, the averages across the bottom row are very comparable to the 2025 season for Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams who went 250-1251-10 in Sean McVay’s offense a year ago.
And here’s how much of an increase or decrease those numbers represented from the previous season for those runners when they found themselves at a similar career-carry point to Cook today:
The cyborg that is Derrick Henry saw an uptick in all of his metrics, including success rate, the latter of which would be normally baffling for any other human being playing running back in the NFL given the significantly increased volume.
James’ brother, Dalvin, was only slightly better across the board. Kamara shouldered less run-game responsibility in 2022 for the Saints than he did in 2021, yet was noticeably more efficient on the ground. Jacobs missed four games due to injury in his final season with the Raiders and saw the most precipitous drop in productivity of any of the five backs in the sample.
It is worth noting — Jacobs’ 2022 was the most similar to Cook’s 2025. In that year in Las Vegas, Jacobs toted the rock 340 times for 1,653 yards with 12 scores on the ground. Cautionary tale? Maybe.
It is also worth noting — the career-carry “cliff” for elite backs is between 1,500 and 1,800 attempts, and Cook’s career total is only at 982 (counting the playoffs) before the 2026 campaign.
McCaffrey spent 2022 on the Panthers and 49ers then asserted himself as Kyle Shanahan’s unquestioned bellcow in 2023 en route to his second first-team All-Pro honors and the league’s Comeback Player of the Year award.
The Bills do have to brace themselves for a less productive Cook in 2026, strictly from a rushing-yard total perspective.
Over the past 50 seasons — so dating back to 1976 — there have been nine instances (18% of the time) in which a running back led the NFL in rushing yards then increased his total the following year, and Earl Campbell miraculously did it in 1979 after 1,450 yards in 1978 then eclipsed his 1979 total of 1,697 yards with 1,934 in 1980 — those were his first three years in the NFL, by the way. That 18% is higher percentage than I initially expected, honestly, yet still rather low.
The other backs to accomplish the rare feat are Eric Dickerson, Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders (2x), Edgerrin James, and Henry from 2019 to 2020.
A new piece along Buffalo’s sturdy offensive line along with a potentially pass-happy head coach, veteran receiver acquisition, and fourth-round wideout many are excited about feel like the ingredients for a less-than-300-carry workload ahead for Cook. And that wouldn’t be the worst development, particularly with his shelf life more front-of-mind given he’ll be 27 in September and is approaching 1,000 career NFL carries.
I’m going to project Cook’s 2026 right at those averages of 274 attempts — a 35-carry dip from 2025 — for 1,272 yards — a 349-yard dip — with nine touchdowns — three fewer than 2025.
That feels right to me.
In each of his first four seasons in Buffalo, Cook has managed a success rate of 50% of higher, which is quite impressive. Success rate is the frequency at which a running back’s carries gain at least 40% of the needed yardage on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% on third or fourth down. If he can stay above 50% again — and his historical comparisons indicate it’s doable — the Bills run game will hum once again.
How do you envision Cook’s 2026?
