James Cook Continues Ride Among Elite RBs In Fantasy Football
Ian Hartitz delivers a breakdown of James Cook and whether he can continue to register elite RB production for fantasy football.
Why does it seem to follow James Cook around that people are surprised that he can handle a large workload? Twice he's surpassed 280 total touches in a season, and in 2024 when he logged "only" 239 touches he led the league with 16 rushing TDs. This is a workhorse RB. The narrative about him being undersized (sub-200 pounds) has to get brushed away like Cook does to defenders. Will he remain one of the elite backs in the NFL? Ian Hartitz breaks it down as part of his Buffalo Bills Team Preview.
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Are we still underestimating James Cook's ceiling in fantasy land?
- RB1: James Cook (RB4 in Fantasy Life ranks)
- RB2: Ray Davis (RB69)
- RB3: Ty Johnson (RB80)
- RB4: Frank Gore Jr.
Maybe! Cook's career-best 2025 campaign featured him leading the league with 1,621 rushing yards, continuing to often look a lot like one of the best players on the field with the football in his hands.
James Cook rushing yards over expected per carry (Next-Gen Stats):
- 2023: +0.45 (10th)
- 2024: +0.82 (8th)
- 2025: +1.17 (2nd)
And yet, it was another season that saw the Bills not exactly go out of their way to feature him as a receiver. That only really happened in 2023 (44-445-4); more modest numbers in 2024 (32-258-2) and 2025 (33-291-2) have left Cook neck-and-neck in receiving fantasy points with guys like Javonte Williams and Kyren Williams.
There's also a bit of concern about Cook's rushing touchdowns keeping up with Allen soaking away so many of the opportunities at the goal line. While the Bills' perennial high-scoring offense affords more opportunities inside the 5-yard line than pretty much anyone else, it's still not exactly ideal that Allen nearly had more rush attempts than Cook (13 vs. 14) inside the 5-yard line last season.
There are two ways to look at this:
- Glass-half-empty: Cook's situation isn't too dissimilar from what we saw with Saquon Barkley last season: Regression following a big touch season (385, including playoffs) filled with perhaps unsustainable long touchdown runs (league-high 4 from 40+ yards) inside an offense that regresses to being more good than great.
- Glass-half-full: We have an extremely good running back inside the league's most consistently awesome scoring offense of the past half-decade, firmly in his prime with proven 18+ touchdown upside who *might* even have more meat on the bone if we happen to see more receiving usage (not impossible).
Ultimately, Fantasy Life's group of alleged expert rankers are looking at Cook with optimism: He's the consensus RB4 behind only Jahmyr Gibbs, Bijan Robinson and Christian McCaffrey. Pretty good company for the *checks notes* RB5 in PPR points per game during the past two seasons.
Also note: We've only seen Cook sidelined once over the past two seasons, and it was actually Ray Davis (23 vs.4 opportunities) who led the way over Ty Johnson. Now, Johnson was a bit more involved in 2025 than 2024—it's possible this would be more of a committee in 2026. Still, Davis deserves the benefit of the doubt until we're proven otherwise and is the preferred late-round handcuff.
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