James Cook was certainly flexing last week when he made the pinned post on his Instagram account “15 mill year.”

As in the Buffalo Bills running back, who is entering the final season of his original four-year rookie contract, believes that talks on a potential extension should start at that figure.

For a guy who would give linebacker Matt Milano quite a battle in a who-would-say-less contest if they were standing side by side in the locker room with a phalanx of reporters in front of them, that was quite a scream from the top of the mountain.

One would assume that general manager Brandon Beane saw that and privately said to himself, “Yeah, right.”

Not that Beane or coach Sean McDermott don’t love Cook, particularly after the last two seasons the running back has given the Bills.

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“What a game he played,” McDermott said after the AFC Championship Game when Cook was arguably the best Bills player that night. “To be his build and to play as physical as he did – he was in another, I don’t know if he was in flow state or he was just in another stratosphere of his intent. It was incredible. And what a year he had, and that’s a great example of these players – we really drafted James to be a pass-catching running back, right? And he comes in and blossoms and just develops in more ways than one, on the field, off the field.”

James Cook stats for 2024

In 2023 Cook ranked fourth in the NFL in rushing yards with 1,122 and sixth in yards from scrimmage with 1,567. And then in 2024, while he slipped to 19th in rushing yards (1,009) and 26th in yards from scrimmage (1,267), he tied for the league lead with 16 rushing touchdowns and was tied for second with 18 total TDs.

Those were two undeniably excellent performances and no one could argue that. But are they worth paying him $15 million per season on a multi-year contract extension which, if it were to happen today, would make Cook the second-highest paid running back in the league behind Christian McCaffrey’s average annual value of $19 million per year with the 49ers?

Sorry, but the Bills cannot, and should not, do something so crazy, especially when they’re already on the hook for seven players with an eight-figure cap hit for 2025 before Beane and his money men start reworking existing contracts just to get cap compliant and then to open some space to sign outside free agents.

Running backs are starting to regain a little of the respect they lost over the past decade or so. For a while, most teams made the conscious decision to not pay running backs for two reasons: Their depreciation rate was generally quicker than any other position, and offenses became predominantly pass heavy, thus reducing all but the true superstar running backs to interchangeable bit parts in the attack.

The Bills certainly fell into this pattern. In 2023 they committed just $3 million in cap dollars to Cook, Latavius Murray and Ty Johnson which ranked 30th in spending at the position according to sports contract website Spotrac.com. In 2024 the figure rose to just $3.7 million for Cook, Johnson and Ray Davis which ranked 25th, far below the Saints who, with Alvin Kamara costing $16.1 million, were No. 1 in running back allocation at $22.5 million.

Running game has emerged in last couple of seasons in NFL

Things have started to move a bit in the last couple years and the running game has reemerged. Among the top 10 rushing teams in 2024, seven made the playoffs, while among the top 10 passing teams, only six made it. Oh, and the Super Bowl champion Eagles? Thanks to Saquon Barkley they ranked second in rushing behind only the Ravens, but were 29th in passing yards.

The Bills ranked ninth in rushing last season and Cook was the primary driver, but he also had plenty of help from Josh Allen (531 yards and 12 TDs), Davis (442) and Johnson (213).

James cook played in less half of offensives snaps in 2024

And here’s where the argument against paying Cook really takes a hit: Since becoming the starter two years ago, Cook played 55% of the offensive snaps in 2023 and 48% in 2024.

That 2024 figure ranked 38th among all running backs, far below league leader Kyren Williams of the Rams (87%) and other players such as Jonathan Taylor of the Colts (2nd at 80%), Bijan Robinson of the Falcons (fifth at 75%), Barkley (sixth at 74%), and Kamara (eighth at 71%).

Of the 14 highest-paid running backs in 2024, only David Montgomery of the Lions had a lower snap percentage than Cook, and that’s because he shares the backfield with Jahmyr Gibbs who led the NFL with 20 touchdowns.

Buffalo Bills face several contract decisions

Beane has some big decisions to make in this offseason, and near the top of the list is which players he should extend among Cook, cornerback Christian Benford, edge rusher Greg Rousseau, linebacker Terrel Bernard and wide receiver Khalil Shakir. Of that group, the case is solid that Cook should sit behind all of them.

“We’ll have conversations with a lot of our guys,” Beane said a few weeks ago, well before Cook announced what he believes he’s worth. “I don’t want to go into each individual who we would try and extend now and you guys know, we do a lot of extensions like that later in the year as well. So, I think once we get through the next few weeks and even closer to the draft, that stuff will kind of start to come to fruition, how our cap dollars are spent and how we can shape contracts for guys that we would want to extend.”