Dec 1, 2022; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) hands off the ball to running back James Cook (28) against the New England Patriots in the first quarter at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
NFL: Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots
Josh Allen can’t do everything himself; you need a run game to win games; are all things we’ve heard for the past two years about the Buffalo Bills. It is no secret that the Bills offense runs through star quarterback Josh Allen, and in all honestly, it should. Allen is one of the most polarizing and best players in the league, and at times, unstoppable. So, the narrative that the Bills are too dependent on Allen, is in brutal honesty, a terrible and lazy take. All teams want their offense to run through their perennial MVP caliber player. A run game though, would open things up even further for Allen. The past couple games the Bills have been locked in on establishing it. With that, the emergence of rookie running back, James Cook, has begun to pop up.
The Bills used a second-round pick in this year’s NFL draft, to select James Cook out of Georgia. The brother of star running back, Dalvin Cook, stood out for his pass catching abilities. He won a national championship and was one of the best running backs in the draft class. The Bills were on a mission to find themselves a dynamic pass catching back in the off-season, and they elected for Cook in April.
Cook started the year slow, not seeing much action, but has really come on the past few weeks. As he began to adjust to the NFL and doing good things with the football in his hands, it gave the Bills enough confidence to deal former number two back, Zack Moss, to the Colts at the trade deadline. Every week, Cook’s snaps and touches have gone up, and he’s looked more comfortable. This past week’s game versus the Patriots seemed to be his, “I have arrived,” game.
Cook made multiple electric plays in space and totaled 64 yards on 14 carries and added another 41 yards on six catches. Cook’s after catch ability is impressive as well and could be extremely useful in an offense that doesn’t generate much YAC, (yards after catch). The Bills have won three games in twelve days, all on the road. Over those three games, Cook has 35 touches for 209 yards, and is averaging 5.7 yards per carry (7th best in the league currently). He also has 11 targets in the last two games, after only 13 total the first 10 games of the season.
Devin Singletary is the lead guy in the Bills backfield, but Cook is coming up on him fast. He out-touched and out-snapped Singletary on Thursday night. Cook is also quickly becoming one of Allen’s favorite targets underneath, as teams continue to try and take away the deep passing attack of the Bills. Per Cover1, the Bills have honed in on concepts they are having success with in the run game. Mainly running darts, mid-zone, and inside zone run concepts. Cook has seven runs of 15 or more yards and three of them have come from the mid-zone concept. Another two have come from crack tosses, further showing the ability of Cook in space.
It’s not out of the realm to think that Cook can take over and be the Bills feature back down the stretch and into the playoffs. He’ll have a chance to continue building momentum in a huge divisional showdown versus the Jets, next Sunday. By the look of it, that is exactly what he’s planning to do. Following the win over the Patriots, Cook took to twitter and told Bills’ fans that there’s, “more to come.”
