What are your feelings on James Cook RB1

[BillMafia716ix]

How you guys feeling on James Cook as a number 1 back? With Brady taking over full time James Cook should see an increase workload. Fumbles and drops have been an issue with him though. I still think he’s too small to be an every down back. Personally I would like to see use him like Detroit uses Gibbs and find a quality #2. I like Ty Johnson but could we find better?

[wppete]

Feeling great. He definitely is a #1 back. He had a great year and think he will be even better next year. 

[Westside]

He seems to disappear in games. I would love to see more consistent next year.

[Beast]

 Cook was 3rd in yards from scrimmage for all running backs. What else needs to be said?

[NeverOutNick]

9 minutes ago, BillMafia716ix said:

How you guys feeling on James Cook as a number 1 back? With Brady taking over full time James Cook should see an increase workload. Fumbles and drops have been an issue with him though. I still think he’s too small to be an every down back. Personally I would like to see use him like Detroit uses Gibbs and find a quality #2. I like Ty Johnson but could we find better?

Gibbs is capable of being an every down RB. He fights for extra yards and doesn’t go down once he’s touched. I like cook in this offense but if you have watched Michigans offense at all he’s our Edwards and we need a Corum

Edited February 8 by NeverOutNick

[Aussie Joe]

Feeling better about him now than this time last year …

 

But … as you said, fumbles and drops in particular are the main issues …

 

I wonder how many times we’ll see a Dallas type game again ? Hope it wasn’t a one time only as I loved that dominance …

 

 

[TBBills Fan]

With valentines day approaching my feelings have not changed. I like him as a friend and love his play on the field, but no deeper feelings unfortunately 

[LABILLBACKER]

He's somewhat proven to be a bonified RB1.  But the drops and fumbles are undeniable. Can someone work with him on technique and focus?  Who knows?? He needs to have a good complementary power RB as a change of pace.  I love what Ty brings but we need someone 10x more reliable than Harris/ Murray.  Not trading for CMC while I watch James drop 4 td passes this season absolutely tore me up. He has the capacity to improve.  The question is does he have the mental toughness and desire to do it?  These are all questions that will likely be answered this fall.

[NewEra]

He’s on his way to being a top 5 back if he can clean the drops and fumbles

[Buddy Hix]

Above average but fails to show up In big moments and has issues holding onto and catching the ball.

[BillsFanForever19]

He was the 4th leading rusher in the NFL and a first selection Pro Bowler. What's not to like?

 

He's a Kamara type RB who has developed well. Saw huge growth between Year 1 and Year 2.

 

A bit frustrating to see him outright drop some balls that hit him right in the hands though, as he was Drafted in large part because of his receiving ability in College. Hopefully he cleans that up next season.

 

24 minutes ago, Westside said:

He seems to disappear in games. I would love to see more consistent next year.

 

Every back in the league disappears at times. Defenses key in on the run and the blocking breaks down and it's hard to run.

 

There were plenty of times though that his shiftiness found lanes and yardage where there shouldn't have been.

Edited February 8 by BillsFanForever19

[Chaos]

He was not particularly effective in the Redzone. 

https://www.fantasypros.com/nfl/red-zone-stats/rb.php?range=full

 

 

[Chicken Boo]

He and Ty are a very good 1-2 punch.  

[CaptnCoke11]

Be nice if he could catch some more wide open TDs but other than that can’t complain.  Get a good #2 to compliment 

[Buffalo Junction]

Remember though… Cook is a RB. Just like Aaron Jones and Kamara he’s gonna drop some passes that make you 🤦‍♂️. He’d be a receiver - like Deebo Samuel - if he had better hands. The threat of Cook scorching a defense is a large part of his value to the offense…. On any given play that kid can break off a huge gain. 
 

IDK what the answer is for a hammer to go along with Cook. It could come from the draft. Could be an AJ Dillon in FA. 🤷‍♂️. I was all for Montgomery last offseason. I’m sure Beane will find someone though. 

[ganesh]

13 minutes ago, Chaos said:

He was not particularly effective in the Redzone. 

https://www.fantasypros.com/nfl/red-zone-stats/rb.php?range=full

 

 

That number gets skewed when Josh Allen (and his 15 TDs) is your QB

[Ya Digg?]

4th in rushing, 3rd in overall yards from scrimmage and there’s a question as to if he should be the #1 guy???

 

if Ty Johnson wants to come back for cheap money cool, if Hines has a cheap deal great…otherwise go find some other really cheap back ups. The Bills shouldn’t be wasting resources this off-season on running backs 

[Chaos]

Just now, ganesh said:

That number gets skewed when Josh Allen (and his 15 TDs) is your QB

I watched the games. The stats match my eyes. If Cook was effective, we would have used Cook more.  

[John from Riverside]

His numbers check out

 

He will always need a partner back there, but most teams do that nowadays

[Shortchaz]

Good player, nothing special. 

[John from Riverside]

4 minutes ago, Buffalo619 said:

Dances too much, hesitates before the hole. Commits critical fumbles and drops. Can’t get into the end zone. He’s had a couple good games but most is blah.  2 out of 10.  We can definitely upgrade the position without any sacrifice. 

He was literally fourth in the league in rushing

 

Your talent evaluation needs more evaluation

[BillsFanForever19]

7 minutes ago, Buffalo619 said:

Dances too much, hesitates before the hole. Commits critical fumbles and drops. Can’t get into the end zone. He’s had a couple good games but most is blah.  2 out of 10.  We can definitely upgrade the position without any sacrifice. 

 

Holy hyperbole Batman. 28 other teams in the league must have 2 out of 10 or 1 out of 10 rushers then.

[Warcodered]

Cook is very good, he should invest in a juggs machine.

[Chaos]

3 minutes ago, Buffalo619 said:

Dances too much, hesitates before the hole. Commits critical fumbles and drops. Can’t get into the end zone. He’s had a couple good games but most is blah.  2 out of 10.  We can definitely upgrade the position without any sacrifice. 

Its not really a matter of upgrading the position. The RB position carries a low dollar value for a reason.  Its not that it is an unimportant position.  It is important.  But gap between the 10th best guy and the 40th best guy is  pretty small.  There are only a couple of guys in the league that make a huge difference throughout the game. Most notably McCafferty.  The list gets pretty small after him. 

As an illustration of his true impact on the team, When the Bills ran the fake punt on 4th and 3, a lot of fans thought it was nuts to take the ball out of Allens hands for the fake.  I did not see a single person who said "we have James Cook, we can count on him for three yards when things are tough, why run Hamlin on a fake".   I also did not see one person say teams can't stop "Allen and Cook", when three yards are on the line.   Cook is an nice player between the 20's. We don't need anyone better in that role.  The Bills will keep him there as long as the price is right. But he is replaceable if his price increases meaninguflly.  

[John from Riverside]

1 minute ago, Buffalo619 said:

Disappeared a lot. Decent player, nothing special. 

OK, well since he was a top five running back in the NFL I guess you could say that about every running back in the NFL?

[Prospector]

Catch the easy TDs and he’s phenomenal 

[LABILLBACKER]

59 minutes ago, Westside said:

He seems to disappear in games. I would love to see more consistent next year.

Yes he had 4-5 monster all purpose games this year spearheaded by the Dallas game. Yet in 4 playoff games he somewhat disappears like Diggs. In the regular season he's Tarzan and plays like Jane in post season. That's not going to ever get us over the KC/ Cincy hurdle.

[saundena]

Joe Marino made an interesting point which was that after DAL, he fell off a cliff across all metrics.  Basically, Joe speculates that Cook who was never a high volume player, had basically worn out (which he also said could have contributed to his drops) late in the season. 

 

That makes sense to me and I think having a 320 touch season under his belt and with another off season conditioning program this year, cook can come back even better.

 

I'm excited for him and what he can do for us next year.

[John from Riverside]

3 minutes ago, Buffalo619 said:

No, specifically J Cook. He wore out after Dallas game. 

He didn’t wear out after the Dallas game. They started accounting for him because he destroyed Dallas.

[saundena]

1 minute ago, John from Riverside said:

He didn’t wear out after the Dallas game. They started accounting for him because he destroyed Dallas.

This is part of it too. But he was performing great all year. I'm sure teams were ignoring him 

[Billl]

1 hour ago, Beast said:

 Cook was 3rd in yards from scrimmage for all running backs. What else needs to be said?

He had 2 TDs and 4 fumbles.  Yards from RBs don’t decide games.  TDs and turnovers do.  Very little of what happens between the 20s matters.

[John from Riverside]

6 minutes ago, Buffalo619 said:

There’s a difference between accounting for and falling off a cliff across the board in stats. You think he wasn’t accounted for prior to Dallas? Of course he was. 

Do you even follow this team because this makes me believe that you don’t
 

Josh Allen is the player that gets accounted for on this team if we had other players that were stepping up and being accounted for we would’ve won a Super Bowl this year

 

James Cook numbers speak for themselves. You can’t take them away stop trying to dismiss them.

[BillsFanForever19]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the comments in this thread. Every thread about any player or coach since the KC loss is filled with people who just want heads to roll everywhere.

 

This coach sucks, the GM sucks, this player sucks, this player is toast, this player is overrated, we should cost ourselves cap to cut this player.

 

It's so exhausting. You'd think we went 2-14.

Edited February 8 by BillsFanForever19

[Beast]

10 minutes ago, Billl said:

He had 2 TDs and 4 fumbles.  Yards from RBs don’t decide games.  TDs and turnovers do.  Very little of what happens between the 20s matters.

 

James Cook is the Bills #1 RB and will be, barring injury, for the next 2 seasons regardless of drops or fumbles this past season.

James Cook was not the Bills red zone threat on the ground. The Bills chose to go with Josh Allen when they got near the goal line.

 

And to say about the guy that was 6 overall in the league, that what he did between the 20’s matters “very little” is down right dumb.

 

Edited February 8 by Beast

[John from Riverside]

18 minutes ago, LABILLBACKER said:

Yes he had 4-5 monster all purpose games this year spearheaded by the Dallas game. Yet in 4 playoff games he somewhat disappears like Diggs. In the regular season he's Tarzan and plays like Jane in post season. That's not going to ever get us over the KC/ Cincy hurdle.

In the first half of Kansas City playoff game, James Cook was playing outstanding
 

Jesus the Revisionist history

[JohnBonhamRocks]

About as happy as can be with him. Shore up those drops and I think he will he a top 5-10 back. Obviously best paired with a thunder to his lightning, which makes Moss’ departure and subsequent success look pretty bad even if we did get Hines in return who I hope has a bounce back year but is by no means a thunder. Also happy with Ty Johnson who was closer to an effective thunder. Could do much worse than Cook, Johnson, Hines. 
 

By the way, any chance we see Damien Harris back?

[John from Riverside]

4 minutes ago, BillsFanForever19 said:

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the comments in this thread. Every thread about any player or coach since the KC loss is filled with people who just want heads to roll everywhere.

 

This coach sucks, the GM sucks, this player sucks, this player is toast, this player is overrated, we should cost ourselves cap to cut this player.

 

It's so exhausting. You'd think we went 2-14.

Welcome to the off season

Just now, JohnBonhamRocks said:

About as happy as can be with him. Shore up those drops and I think he will he a top 5-10 back. Obviously best paired with a thunder to his lightning, which makes Moss’ departure and subsequent success look pretty bad even if we did get Hines in return who I hope has a bounce back year but is by no means a thunder. Also happy with Ty Johnson who was closer to an effective thunder. Could do much worse than Cook, Johnson, Hines. 
 

By the way, any chance we see Damien Harris back?

Sad what happened to Damien Harris he was really killing it till he got hurt

[JohnBonhamRocks]

1 minute ago, John from Riverside said:

Welcome to the off season

Sad what happened to Damien Harris he was really killing it till he got hurt

Yeah he’s always been talented. Hope he’s ok. Haven’t heard a peep about him since right after.

[Ya Digg?]

22 minutes ago, JohnBonhamRocks said:

About as happy as can be with him. Shore up those drops and I think he will he a top 5-10 back. Obviously best paired with a thunder to his lightning, which makes Moss’ departure and subsequent success look pretty bad even if we did get Hines in return who I hope has a bounce back year but is by no means a thunder. Also happy with Ty Johnson who was closer to an effective thunder. Could do much worse than Cook, Johnson, Hines. 
 

By the way, any chance we see Damien Harris back?

You don’t think he’s a top 10 back already?! Can people (not just you) name even 5 backs better than him this past season? 

Edited February 8 by Ya Digg?

[Nephilim17]

Given his leaner frame, I had zero expectations for him running north-south but he did this surprisingly well and I saw him drag defenders after getting engaged.

 

Very happy for a late 2nd round pick. Is he Derick Henry? No, but he's got juice, good vision, more power than expected and is a catching threat (despite some drops; as someone said, he's a running back not a WR and he's got the league's hardest thrower passing him the ball). Get a bruiser late in the draft or in FA and we're good.