Is Cook worth it?

[DrDawkinstein]

lmao

[DrDawkinstein]

 

 

Wonder what they did on 3rd down after that play...

[Freddie's Dead]

This post aged well.....

[Wolfgang]

 

[Magox]

Yeah!  Totally worth all the money he was paid and some!   You don’t quibble over a couple million and let them potentially walk like many were willing to do when you have a certified playmaker.

 

Glad we have him locked up for the next few years.   

[frostbitmic]

Simple answer YES.

[Negan]

Yes, Ray Davis stinks.  

[DrDawkinstein]

Just now, Negan said:

Yes, Ray Davis stinks.  

 

I dont want him to stink. I'm one of the Bills fans that realize we can have more than one nice thing. It doesnt have to be Fred or Marshawn, or Fred or CJ, or Jimbo or Davis...

 

I'd love to have a RB room with 3 great players. And I think we have a couple of very good pieces to compliment Cook.

 

But the over-hype Davis got by fans who were just looking for, begging for, making up reasons to disparage Cook as a person and a player was so ridiculous, it's bound to bite Davis in the butt this year when he doesnt live up to the "Thurman Thomas comparisons".

 

He's right where a lot of us said he is, somewhere between Singletary and Moss. And that's about what you get with those 3rd round RBs.

 

Bit of a slow start this season, but I'm hoping he finds his legs and vision soon. It's nice to have that 1-2 punch of Cook and Davis, with Ty making an occasional crazy play in the pass game.

[Big Turk]

Cook has become one of the best goalline RB's in the NFL with his ability to run away from people laterally, jump cut out of a phone booth and then something that has really surprised me, his ability to shrug off contact and keep moving forward.

 

And not only that, he has become elite, perhaps best in the NFL, at contorting his body so that he gets a hand on the ground and then continues forward by driving his legs or pushing off them, especially near the goalline. Saw it yesterday on his short TD run, saw it in the Chiefs playoff game on that unreal 4th down play where he put his hand down and then launched himself into the EZ via his legs from 2 yards out....

 

Dude is becoming an exceptional goalline RB.

[eball]

A lot of people didn’t want to listen to me, but I’ve said it numerous times over the past season and a half…Cook is crucial to this Bills offense reaching its potential.  He is to this offense what Thurman was to the K-Gun Bills.  I am NOT saying Cook = Thurman, but he is the game breaker and probably the only other person besides Josh for whom defenses have to actually game plan.  He was worth every dollar Beane paid, and we are reaping the benefits.  Shame on all of the “let him walk” know-it-alls who once again prove how little they know.

 

 

[DrDawkinstein]

Just now, Big Turk said:

Cook has become one of the best goalline RB's in the NFL with his ability to run away from people laterally, jump cut out of a phone booth and then something that has really surprised me, his ability to shrug off contact and keep moving forward.

 

And not only that, he has become elite, perhaps best in the NFL, at contorting his body so that he gets a hand on the ground and then continues forward by driving his legs or pushing off them, especially near the goalline. Saw it yesterday on his short TD run, saw it in the Chiefs playoff game on that unreal 4th down play where he put his hand down and then launched himself into the EZ via his legs from 2 yards out....

 

Dude is becoming an exceptional goalline RB.

 

I noticed yesterday on his stat line, his TDs were 1yd and 44 yds. Showcasing how he gets it done from any distance now.

 

And on that 44 yarder, he juked right thorugh a tackle, running through contact. This is no longer the James Cook of 2022.

[eball]

Most 40+ TD runs in the league since ‘22 (5).

 

[BarleyNY]

Let’s not revise what was said. Lotta people said to give him what he wanted, which was $15M AAV. Or didn’t even put a number to it at all. It’s difficult for me to understand why those fans get to take a victory lap on this. OTOH, some of us wanted him extended for almost exactly what he ended up getting. I was very happy with where it all eventually landed. He got a little more guaranteed and a little less AAV than I estimated. Beane held firm and did a great job on this one. Kudos to him. 

[eball]

5 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

Let’s not revise what was said. Lotta people said to give him what he wanted, which was $15M AAV. Or didn’t even put a number to it at all. It’s difficult for me to understand why those fans get to take a victory lap on this. OTOH, some of us wanted him extended for almost exactly what he ended up getting. I was very happy with where it all eventually landed. He got a little more guaranteed and a little less AAV than I estimated. Beane held firm and did a great job on this one. Kudos to him. 

 

Fans acting like it’s their money when they are arguing over 1-2M AAV for a star player sound ridiculous…as if it would have been the worst thing in the world if Cook wound up with 14M rather than 12M.  The bottom line is that you don’t let difference makers walk away, which is what MANY fans wanted to do when Cook made comments on the Gram and then had his hold-in.

 

[Aesop]

Cook doesnt run, he glides. It is as if he is floating on air. Totally worth the money if you can float on air.

Edited September 15 by Aesop

[BarleyNY]

6 minutes ago, eball said:

 

Fans acting like it’s their money when they are arguing over 1-2M AAV for a star player sound ridiculous…as if it would have been the worst thing in the world if Cook wound up with 14M rather than 12M.  The bottom line is that you don’t let difference makers walk away, which is what MANY fans wanted to do when Cook made comments on the Gram and then had his hold-in.

 

It’s difficult to take anyone who uses the “it’s not your money” argument seriously. It shows a complete lack of understanding of how the NFL works and how good/great teams are built.

 

Obviously it’s about cap space and the use of scarce resources (cap & cash) to build a roster. Every dollar that is overpaid to a player can’t be used effectively elsewhere. 

 

As for Cook’s contract specifically, it was much better than you realize based on your post. Beane did several things well with it, including:

- Maintaining his compensation for 2025. He didn’t tear up the last year of the current contract so it only factored in at the existing $5M+. 

- The first three season of the extension are at $10M cash, not $12M. 

- So Cook is under contract for 5 seasons, but the first 4 total $35M CASH, or under $9M AAV. 

- That’s a far cry from $60M over the same four seasons. A team can do a lot with $25M. 

- As for the final year of the deal, Cook will be 30 so I’d look for some sort of rework or a release by then depending on how he is holding up. 

 

I was happy to see that Beane didn’t set a bad precedent by caving to the pressure exerted by Cook and his camp. Holding firm and getting a market value deal done will discourage others from trying similar tactics - rather than encourage them to do so. Great job on this one by Beane. 

[eball]

2 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

It’s difficult to take anyone who uses the “it’s not your money” argument seriously. It shows a complete lack of understanding of how the NFL works and how good/great teams are built.

 

Obviously it’s about cap space and the use of scarce resources (cap & cash) to build a roster. Every dollar that is overpaid to a player can’t be used effectively elsewhere. 

 

As for Cook’s contract specifically, it was much better than you realize based on your post. Beane did several things well with it, including:

- Maintaining his compensation for 2025. He didn’t tear up the last year of the current contract so it only factored in at the existing $5M+. 

- The first three season of the extension are at $10M cash, not $12M. 

- So Cook is under contract for 5 seasons, but the first 4 total $35M CASH, or under $9M AAV. 

- That’s a far cry from $60M over the same four seasons. A team can do a lot with $25M. 

- As for the final year of the deal, Cook will be 30 so I’d look for some sort of rework or a release by then depending on how he is holding up. 

 

I was happy to see that Beane didn’t set a bad precedent by caving to the pressure exerted by Cook and his camp. Holding firm and getting a market value deal done will discourage others from trying similar tactics - rather than encourage them to do so. Great job on this one by Beane. 

 

You’re only proving my point.  We let the guys who have to do it for a living (Beane) negotiate good contracts that reward the player while also protecting the team.  Cook was never going to get 15M but he got a very fair raise and contract and acted like a professional the whole time, while many fans acted like little babies.

 

[DrDawkinstein]

29 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

Let’s not revise what was said. Lotta people said to give him what he wanted, which was $15M AAV. Or didn’t even put a number to it at all. It’s difficult for me to understand why those fans get to take a victory lap on this. OTOH, some of us wanted him extended for almost exactly what he ended up getting. I was very happy with where it all eventually landed. He got a little more guaranteed and a little less AAV than I estimated. Beane held firm and did a great job on this one. Kudos to him. 

 

This is a greater revision than anything else posted so far. Maybe not for your specific posts, but you can certainly go through the many pages of the many threads we had here on the subject, and you will mainly see angry Bills fans working extra hard to disparage Cook as a person and a player, most of the time wildly inaccurately.

 

You will see far more posts about how he isnt even worth $10M year, all the things he cant do, how he's nothing special, how we should trade him away while we can, or punish him by running him into the ground this year and wearing out his body or even injuring him before we let him walk.

 

Any reasonable posts like yours, or @Doc Brown's stance, were the tiny minority.

 

And even then, at this point, had we signed him to $17M/yr and sent the fanbase into a conniption, by week 2 we'd still all be here saying it looks like a good deal now.

 

So lets not revise what was said and pretend the fanbase was totally reasonable and just worried about getting the number right. The personal attacks speak for themselves.

 

I wasnt the one who bumped this thread, and I never intended to, and I wont go back and quote the many, MANY posts that were just bitter and wrong. But they still exist.

6 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

It’s difficult to take anyone who uses the “it’s not your money” argument seriously. It shows a complete lack of understanding of how the NFL works and how good/great teams are built.

 

Obviously it’s about cap space and the use of scarce resources (cap & cash) to build a roster. Every dollar that is overpaid to a player can’t be used effectively elsewhere. 

 

As for Cook’s contract specifically, it was much better than you realize based on your post. Beane did several things well with it, including:

- Maintaining his compensation for 2025. He didn’t tear up the last year of the current contract so it only factored in at the existing $5M+. 

- The first three season of the extension are at $10M cash, not $12M. 

- So Cook is under contract for 5 seasons, but the first 4 total $35M CASH, or under $9M AAV. 

- That’s a far cry from $60M over the same four seasons. A team can do a lot with $25M. 

- As for the final year of the deal, Cook will be 30 so I’d look for some sort of rework or a release by then depending on how he is holding up. 

 

I was happy to see that Beane didn’t set a bad precedent by caving to the pressure exerted by Cook and his camp. Holding firm and getting a market value deal done will discourage others from trying similar tactics - rather than encourage them to do so. Great job on this one by Beane. 

 

It's difficult to take anyone seriously who is worried about a couple extra mil on Cook's contract and what that does to the cap, when we have contracts out there like Knox and Samuel.

 

If cash/cap allocation is your main issue, then start somewhere else. Paying our best players aint it.

 

We could have paid Cook 4/$60M+ and be fine. It isnt that contract holding us back.

[Big Turk]

8 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

It’s difficult to take anyone who uses the “it’s not your money” argument seriously. It shows a complete lack of understanding of how the NFL works and how good/great teams are built.

 

Obviously it’s about cap space and the use of scarce resources (cap & cash) to build a roster. Every dollar that is overpaid to a player can’t be used effectively elsewhere. 

 

As for Cook’s contract specifically, it was much better than you realize based on your post. Beane did several things well with it, including:

- Maintaining his compensation for 2025. He didn’t tear up the last year of the current contract so it only factored in at the existing $5M+. 

- The first three season of the extension are at $10M cash, not $12M. 

- So Cook is under contract for 5 seasons, but the first 4 total $35M CASH, or under $9M AAV. 

- That’s a far cry from $60M over the same four seasons. A team can do a lot with $25M. 

- As for the final year of the deal, Cook will be 30 so I’d look for some sort of rework or a release by then depending on how he is holding up. 

 

I was happy to see that Beane didn’t set a bad precedent by caving to the pressure exerted by Cook and his camp. Holding firm and getting a market value deal done will discourage others from trying similar tactics - rather than encourage them to do so. Great job on this one by Beane. 

 

You mean like Dawson Knox having the 3rd highest cap hit on the team?

[thewookie1]

Turns out yes for what he's now making, not 15mil. He really stepped up last season and has continued that trend.