Einstein's Dog

Except in Cook's situation he may not be able to improve his stats, so why bother? His FA market right now is higher than what the Bills intend to pay.

While Cook's leverage may not be as good as next season, the motivation to hold out is because his numbers won't be better. The Bills plan is to use Cook the same as last season, and the same RB room is back intact. TDs are kind of a fluke, and Cook may not get as many as last year. For those who play FF you would not expect much, if any, increase in points. So the fear for me is if you believe the above ,what is the reason for playing this year? The "hold-in" for 11 games and get the money you would based on last years numbers - should get you over $12m/yr and a big pile of guaranteed money (around $20M). Sacrafice most of the $5M now (and risk of injury) for the payday next year.

Where I think it is mostly likely to come into play is if J Cook is on an undefined (possibly 11 week) "hold-in" and misses games. And if, during the initial weeks of the "hold-in" R Davis and T Johnson perform admirably, Cooks days could be numbered. I could see this type of "hold-in" being interpreted as a nuclear, Diggs dimensional diss to our FO and team, where they will not have him suit up as a Bill ever again.

What about an in-season trade? I would like to get back to where the Bills pay the WR1 and not the RB1. Trade J Cook for a good WR. Trying to think of possibilities, maybe J Cook for C Olave (Olave shows he's back from injury and after Kamara gets injured) or Cook for G Pickens. Or J Cook for DJ Moore if/when Chicago fails to meet the new lofty expectations. Something like that.

I agree, they had (have?) rules against pulling, rules against pushing seem quite similar. Also they don't allow the defense credit when they push the runner back - the forward progress thing. They should not allow forward progress for the offense from someone pushing.

Responses: 1. Just because you have some hard to officiate plays does not mean you should have more. Less hard to officiate plays the better. It's a scrum and the officials (and fans at first) have no clue how far the ball went. The real injustice showed in the KC/Bills game where even upon their limited review they still got it wrong. 2. Once again, just because you have some boring plays does not mean you need more. They have a chance to get rid of an ugly boring play - they should do it. 3. Yes, obviously there is a chance the QB gets hurt. Of course you have the option of not running the odds on most successful playt, but that is hard for a coach to opt for. Kind of like when the Bills didn't want to run Josh, the Dorsey offense took a hit for it. Can you imagine the heat McD would have received had he chose to hand the ball off on that 4tth and inches and not gotten it? 4. The unfairness to the defense was exposed in the WA game, where they had a defense of sending a person over the top at the snap of the ball. They mis-timed it a few times and were told that the next time the offense would be awarded a TD - that was ridiculous. 5. Allowing a person to be thrown over a pile would be a terrible move for the sport of football, kind of like the tush-push is now. It was an example of the sport needing to put a rule in for something they did not foresee.

A couple of comments from me - one, Winston is not a leader. He comes off as kind of stupid, the whole eat a "W" thing was bizarre. And lately he has had this religious thing going on. Secondly, IMO, the Bills would not want Winston as the backup. The Bills do not have a good WR core and IMO that is what Winston needs. The Tampa Winston teams had Evans and Godwin and Winston still threw a boatload of INTs. But I do think Winston is better than what a lot of other teams have at QB, and plays a more exciting brand of ball.

Well, I mean Coleman will need to pick up the stats left behind with the departure of Hollins in addition to what Coleman did last year. Hollins had a lot of snaps and did a good job blocking - the hope is Coleman can help take over and fill that void while improving on the receiving duties.

There are a ton of problems: 1. Extremely hard to officiate/mark the ball. See Bills KC. Officials just generally mark first down for most except unlucky few. 2. Boring, ugly play. Looks like a scrum in rugby 3. Puts QB at risk. Tons of things could happen. And officials take blind eye to some (see Josh having people take a swing at him) 4. Unfair to Defenses. When the defense like in the one game was sending players over the top, the officials actually said one more and they would award a TD - ridiculous. 5. What's next, instead of pushing forward the player they shoot a smaller player skyward - throw him over the pile for a first down?

I think we need Palmer to do better than what Cooper did- possible since Cooper underperformed expectations IMO. The Hollins upgrade needs to come from K Coleman. That is a large, but doable, jump.

I seem to be in the minority with not liking the Hollins schtick. Didn't bother me to see that gimmick go out the door. Although I did think they would be bringing in someone better, so that kind of disappointed me - I consider Palmer the A Cooper replacement. As to the OP, I liked the TO thing at the time. I didn't like see Pete Metzelaars leave - but I guess he was a multi-year player.

Tampa's fanbase is much worse so tickets should be even cheaper. I'm definitely holding out. Becomes a question of whether starters will play at all or not. Used to be last preseason none played, but now with just 3 games the routine may be different. It is two weeks before the season.

Looks like there is a preseason Bills at Tampa game on Saturday 8/23/25 at 7:30. Ticketmaster has tickets priced $100+. I'm obviously not falling for that, but how much do you reasonably expect to pay for something like this? Would this be preseason game #2 or #3? Any chance of any starters? The 7:30 start time seems a little tricky, leaving around 10 after tailgating for hours but such is life - otherwise there would be some serious heat to deal with. Good opportunity to practice some day drinking/tailgating prior to Miami for us older Floridian fans. I'm thinking about doing this, any suggestions and tips? Thanks.

What we're concerned with is what the Bills should be paying him. If the Bills plan to continue to use him as a 50% snap RB, which is what it looks like with the current stable of RBs being the same as last year, then the Bills would want to pay him for that role. It's not many of us wish that he signs elsewhere, it may be a lot of posters wish that Cook would embrace the role he has.

This is a made up myth that keeps being repeated. How do you know how the Bills wouldn't have taken Lamar? We do know the Bills weren't satisfied with what they had at QB even after making the playoffs. If you put Lamar and D Henry on the current Bills they would still be favorites to win the AFCE.

Cap figures are not all that Matter! The substance of the transaction matters!! Eventually the substance must be accounted for. You can manipulate individual years but eventually the cap needs to be considered. Baltimore clearly manipulated the 2024 cap figure for D Henry because they were probably tight to the cap. They gave Henry the $7,790,000 signing bonus but manipulated the cap figure to only be $5M. The difference must be accounted for in the future. The substance of the transaction, the $16M matters, because Balt is going to have to account for it in the future. This is like you saying "oh, they're paying D Henry a lot because the cap figure is $13M this year". No, they are making up some of what they hadn't claimed the year before. The amount to D Henry had always been paying him $16M for 2 years.

Two seasons in a row like what? An exciting 1,000 rushing, +300 yds receiving, who plays 50% of the snaps? Someone is going to give $15-17M for that? When was the last time that happened? Cook may mean more to the Bills than some other teams because of the lack of other explosive weapons. So Beane might be tempted to overpay and tag Cook - but I'm not sure, remember Beane let D Henry go to Balt for under $10M. And the more Cook slides into Diggs type territory the less likely it becomes.

You are bolding the cap figures. We've been trying to tell you those are extremely manipulative. D Henry had a $7,790,000 signing bonus for 2024, with $9M guaranteed. D Henry received more money than what Balt used for a cap hit - those are the games you can play with the cap. This year D Henry will get the remaining portion of the $16M (don't get confused by what they do with the cap).

Yes, it was $8M/yr for D Henry. Cap numbers can be manipulated. The first year was not a "prove-it" year. From Spotrac: Derrick Henry signed a 2 year, $16,000,000 contract with the Baltimore Ravens, including $7,790,000 signing bonus, $9,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $8,000,000. In 2025, Henry will earn a base salary of $6,000,000 and a roster bonus of $1,000,000, while carrying a cap hit of $12,895,000 and a dead cap value of $4,895,000. Cook does not want to be paid for what he has done, he wants market price for what he thinks he could do. Cook has 2 season with about 1,000 yds rushing and 300 receiving. This is C Hubbard/D Swift/D Henry $8.5M/yr territory. Putting up a season like he did last year does not get Cook to $17m, let alone making it worth tagging him. $17M? What are you thinking?

I do want to backstep a bit and reiterate that I think Cook is an exciting RB. He has really come on and IMO is close to top 5. While everyone seems to dread the Lamar/D Henry combo I thought there was a little disrespect to the Josh/Cook dynamic - it's that much of a factor. I would prefer an extension, and for more years than several on this thread (just not at $15M/yr). I think the 200ish carries will preserve Cook and he has several good years left. Unfortunately I guess I don't like seeing the negotiations playing out in front of me. It makes me fear things have gone South.

I think you will see that this is also the opinion of Beane. But at least the odds are we get Cook this year - and if Cook hasn't peaked- maybe franchise tag him the year after.

McD thought different personnel were better suited to play on the critical drive at crunch time than Cook. That does not reflect well on Cook. You call it a clear mistake that Cook wasn't out there but yet you don't know why. I don't know why McD did not have Cook out there, but I'm extremely confident McD wanted to win. And McD thought his best way to win at that time was with different players than Cook out there. While Spotrac is just one service giving their evaluation at $10.2M, it should help some understand why many think the $15M claim was ridiculous.

I think the D Swift comparisons are more about the stats - the worth of a somewhat young player who has 200 carries, 1,000ish yds + approx 40 receptions for 300 yds with a good OL in front of them. Swift got 3yrs $24M with $15M guaranteed. Spotrac has J Cook's market value listed at $10.2M/yr (4yrs $40.8M).

How about we just look at the market price of a 200 carry 1,000 yd-ish back - (+ 50 rec for 300 yds) because that is what he has been, and that is the role the Bills have in mind for him. And that is not a $15M role. The useless bit of information about Cook's relative usage on our team is irrelevant. Without Cook someone else would be the second most productive player. And if that player got 200 carries and around 1,000 yards they too would not get $15M, no matter how exciting they look doing it. While you can downplay the 2 v 3 downs, you don't mention Cook not being out there during the crunch drive vs KC. Lets not pretend the coaches didn't want their best personnel out there - and Cook was not on the field. A $15M player should be out there in crunch time.

To me it's a ridiculous amount, and I think to most fans it looks unreasonable - at the time it was $3M more than Barkley. And it's beyond the top end of the 2 down RB market. It signifies Cook wants to be paid at the top tier of the 3 down workhorse RB market - which he is not currently in (thus the Shakir example). I still can't figure out why Cook's team put that out there - what good did they think could come from it. As for social media games, the Diggs thing turned the Bills fanbase against him. And Poyer's wasn't much better, seemingly orchestrated by his wife.