James Cook doesn't look like a rushing champion. He's 5'11", 190 pounds, built more like a slot receiver than a workhorse back. He doesn't have Derrick Henry's violence at the point of attack or Jonathan Taylor's explosive burst through the hole. What he has is something harder to quantify: an almost preternatural understanding of where defenders aren't.
Cook finished the 2025 season with 1,621 rushing yards. First in the NFL. First Bills running back to claim that title since O.J. Simpson in 1976. That's not a typo—Buffalo waited 49 years for this.
The numbers tell one story
Cook carried the ball 307 times for those yards, averaging 5.2 per attempt. He scored 12 rushing touchdowns. He passed 1,000 yards for the third consecutive season, becoming only the third Bill to ever accomplish that (after Simpson and Thurman Thomas, names that carry serious weight in that franchise's history).
His best game came in Week 8 against Carolina: 216 yards and two touchdowns on 19 carries. That's 11.4 yards per carry. The most rushing yards by a Bill since Simpson dropped 273 on the Patriots in 1976.
The race itself came down to the wire. Cook entered Week 18 with 1,606 yards. Derrick Henry sat at 1,469 but had the Ravens' season finale against Pittsburgh to make a charge. Jonathan Taylor was right there at 1,559. In the end, Henry finished with 1,595—just 26 yards short—after going off for 126 in the first half before cooling in the second. Taylor managed only 26 yards to finish at 1,585.
Cook added 15 quiet yards against the Jets. It was enough.
The vision thing
Ask anyone in Buffalo's offensive line what separates Cook, and they'll talk about his eyes. Right guard O'Cyrus Torrence put it plainly to The Athletic this week: "As an offensive lineman, to block for an MVP quarterback and a rushing champion in back-to-back seasons? That's nice."
Josh Allen—who knows a thing or two about making plays out of nothing—called it straight: "He's the best back in football. He should be in the running for every award. He's an absolute stud. We love having him. He makes our offense go."
That's not coach-speak. That's a quarterback who understands what it means to have a running game that defenses actually fear. When Cook gets the ball, defensive coordinators can't just load up against Allen. They have to respect the run. And when they respect the run, Allen does what Allen does.
What it means
The Bills are the No. 1 seed in the AFC. They open the playoffs Sunday against Jacksonville. Cook will be a central part of whatever happens next—because unlike so many modern offenses that treat running backs as afterthoughts, Buffalo built something balanced. Something sustainable. Something that can grind out January wins.
Cook was a second-round pick in 2022. He's 26 years old. In an era when running backs get chewed up and discarded, when the position has been devalued to the point of absurdity, he just had one of the best seasons in Bills history.
O.J. Simpson's franchise record of 2,003 yards in 1973 is safe. But that 1976 mark? Cook came closer than anyone has in half a century.
Sometimes the best players don't need to be the biggest or the fastest. Sometimes they just see the game differently.