The Buffalo Bills have signed running back James Cook to a 4 year, $48M contract extension on Wednesday, ending his “hold-in” with the team.
The new deal, which will tie Cook to the club through 2029 will feature $30M in guaranteed money, and was reportedly hammered out just after 11pm ET on Tuesday evening. Cook put pen to paper on Wednesday morning before practice to make things official.
“I think we had an understanding that we need to practice if we’re gonna be able to get back to the table,” Beane said. “And so I think there was good faith on both parts from him and his agent to our side, and once we got him back on the practice field, we really worked hard.”
Cook sat out the team’s first preseason game, after going through a hold-in during his team’s training camp last week. With the extension now in place, all parties can move forward in their pursuit of a Super Bowl championship for a franchise that’s come agonizingly close the last several seasons.
“James could only envision himself as a Buffalo Bill,” Cook’s agent Zac Hiller said. “We are extremely thankful to the entire Bills organization and glad we could make that happen.”
A 2x Pro Bowler, Cook rushed for 1,009 yards and 16 TDs on the ground in 2024 to help keep the Bills offence humming along. His rushing TD total tied O.J. Simpson’s franchise record for the most rushing scores in a single season.
“We like what [Cook] provides, and we do see him as a three-down-type player and we think he could take more, but we also want to use our other weapons and keep him as fresh as possible,” Beane said Wednesday. “We think that’s the best utilization of him, and we just look at, I know he gets put in the running back room or guys get put in a tight end room, but it’s just trying to find a variety of weapons and skill sets and he’s got a skill set that we wanted to maintain and keep with this offence.”
Buffalo’s next preseason game comes on August 17th against the Chicago Bears. In all likelihood, Cook will make his 2025 in game debut at some point during the contest.
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