James Cook, the 2026 rushing champ, suddenly has a subpar contract

Published August 7, 2026 12:36 PM Three high-end running backs got new contracts this week. The 2025 NFL rushing champion did not.Bills running back James Cook, who rushed for 1,621 yards last season, has a deal that pays $11.5 million per year. With Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs resetting the bar to $22.5 million, Cook is sitting at nearly 50 percent of the total market.He has made no public noise about getting a new deal. Then again, he doesn’t need to. The numbers speak for themselves.Then there’s 2027, when Cook is due to make $9.72 million. Presumably, Cook will make it known after the 2026 season that he wants a new deal. And if the Bills dig in, it could be a problem next year. If, as it appears, 2027 will be the target for a new deal, the latter weeks of the 2026 season could get interesting. By December, no one is 100 percent. If Cook is rumbling through the holidays with a smattering of manageable bumps and bruises, at what point would he decide to protect himself in advance of negotiations in 2027?It’s one thing to show up for training camp and cite an injury to avoid practicing until the contract is enhanced. It’s quite another to point to a legitimate injury through which the player is playing when the regular-season salary shifts to the far less lucrative postseason game checks.We’ve mused in the past about the possibility of a player in the last year of his contract refusing to play in the postseason in an effort to get a new contract. The far more subtle (and possibly far more effective) approach would be to decide not to risk major injury by disregarding one or more minor injuries.For the Bills particularly, whose overall anxiety level will skyrocket when the single-elimination phase arrives, the prospect of the workhorse tailback tapping out due to a legitimate injury (or two) becomes more than enough reason to consider fixing a contract that has quickly gotten out of whack, after the recent signings of Gibbs, Falcons running back Bijan Robinson, and Colts running back Jonathan Taylor.