James Cook

James Cook rushed 13 times for 85 yards and two touchdowns in Buffalo’s AFC Championship loss to the Chiefs, adding three catches for 49 yards on his only three targets.

Despite looking like the surest bet the Bills had — 6.5 yards a carry was three yards better than anyone else the Bills used — the Bills bafflingly split Cook’s workload and left him with just 33 of 73 total snaps. Cook keyed a go-ahead touchdown drive just after halftime when he led off the drive with three runs for 43 total yards, then made it into the end zone despite a fourth-and-1 playcall that left him having to levitate the ball over the goal line with a sudden burst of power after he appeared to be stopped short. Trailing 32-29, Cook did not see the ball once on Buffalo’s final drive of the game, which feels like a pretty rough indictment of Joe Brady’s game plan. Cook actually carried the ball 30 fewer times than last year despite Buffalo going to a run-heavy approach, but it’s hard for his fantasy managers to complain after he turned in an NFL-high 16 rushing touchdowns despite working next to Josh Allen. Ray Davis likely will remain a thorn in Cook’s side in 2025, but he can climb the low-end RB1 ranks with this kind of workload as long as nobody says the words “touchdown regression” too loudly.