James Cook's 2025 offseason was interesting, if not stressful.
It included many conversations regarding his future and came with little certainty. With his financial future far from secure beyond 2025, Cook had reason to hold out of Bills training camp.
He didn't, instead reporting on time and fully participating in practice. Cook's logic is simple: It's what he signed to do. He's hoping his efforts lead to an extension that will keep him in Buffalo -- a place in which he'd like to spend his entire career -- beyond this season.
"I mean, we have talks. I'm never going to give up," Cook said Thursday, via The Athletic. "I mean, I deserve it -- what I want, what I need. It's going to eventually happen."
What Cook wants is a $15 million-per-year contract that would move him into the top four in average annual value among NFL running backs, joining the likes of Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry. The question is whether he's worth it.
Cook rushed for 1,009 yards and tied for the league lead with 16 touchdowns on the ground in 2024, his second straight campaign in which he broke 1,000 yards. However, in the current pass-first era, he doesn't carry the same value as a pass-catching back as other ascending talents. In fact, Buffalo typically turns to Ty Johnson for those duties.
Paying a running back top-tier money to only run the ball is counterintuitive to modern roster-building approaches. But those who watch Cook and understand his role in Buffalo's offense know how important he is to balancing a unit that disproportionately relied on reigning NFL MVP Josh Allen too much. And there's no questioning Cook's value as a runner; the rushing touchdown total speaks for itself.
With this in mind, Cook feels emboldened. He knows a team will be willing to pay him more than the $5.2 million he's scheduled to earn in base salary this season.
"I mean, however it happens, it's going to get done. Wherever it happens," he said.
That comment pushed the door to a possible 2026 departure wide open. After hearing Bills general manager Brandon Beane spend the offseason explaining the puzzle-piecing process of salary cap management and suggesting there might not be room for Cook, the running back should be considering the possibility of playing elsewhere beyond this season.
Beane isn't fanning the flames in late July, though.
"As I've said all along, I love James Cook. You know how I am. I want to draft, develop, re-sign our own," Beane said Wednesday. "It is a business. We have to fit it in, not only cash, but cap, and sometimes, you can look at it and say, 'Well, you know, you go to this website or whatever, they could fit him in if they did this and this.' But we also have to look at '26, '27 and beyond, because you can walk yourself into one of those years where you're like, 'Oh man, there's not a lot of guys, we can take them out here.' We would have to trade or cut someone that we wouldn't want to lose. … So all those things have to make sense for us to fit in him."
Beane's response suggests he's laying the foundation for a potential split, but it isn't guaranteed. He made sure to add he hopes to see Cook in blue and red at Bills training camp a year from now, properly walking the tightrope commonly discovered amid contract talks.
In the meantime, Cook is going to put his head down and get to work, which includes a desire to play a bigger part in the passing game on third down.
He believes if he controls what he can control, the dollars will follow.
"It's my job. I've got to participate so I won't get fined," Cook said. "It's just come out here and show them that I'm ready to go and earn what I've got to go get. I don't owe it to nobody but my teammates and myself and my family. So by me participating, showing my teammates that I love the game and that I'm willing to be out here."
