James Cook — Week 1: Thirteen Carries, None Inside the Ten
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Cook carried thirteen times for fifty-seven yards with no touchdowns and caught three of four targets for twelve, and the two goal-line snaps Buffalo had from the Houston one were both Josh Allen's, an incompletion and then the sneak. His twelve-yard run from the Buffalo four with three thirteen left, fumbled and recovered by Buffalo at the nineteen, opened the ninety-six-yard drive that won it 36–31 over the Texans.
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James Cook's most important carry Sunday ended with the ball on the ground. First and 10 at the Buffalo four, three 13 left in the fourth quarter, Bills down 30 to 31 after a 59-yard punt was downed there: Cook behind the left guard for 12 yards to the 16, then a fumble, forced by Derek Stingley Junior, recovered by Buffalo's O'Cyrus Torrence at the 19. The play is credited as +0.8 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and about six points of win probability, because the ball came out and stayed with Buffalo and the next snap was first and 10 at the 19. Six plays later Josh Palmer caught the winning touchdown.
The line: 13 carries, 57 yards, no touchdowns, longest 12, five of the 13 successful, and the carries came out at −0.1 expected points in total. Two went for 10 or more, the 11-yarder up the middle on the third snap of the game and the 12 at the end, and four went for a yard or less. The catches were three, three and six yards on four targets, with one incompletion, all short, −0.4 on the targets. The first three snaps of the game all went through him — nine yards behind the left guard, a three-yard catch, 11 up the middle — and the drive ended at the Houston 34 when Josh Allen was stopped on fourth and one from the Houston 34; Cook's third-and-three carry the play before had gained two.
Buffalo ran 21 times, and Cook had 13 of them against six for Allen, one for Ray Davis and one for Frank Gore Junior. The lead share was clear, but the two carries that scored were Allen's, a 21-yard scramble and a one-yard sneak, and Cook's closest carry to the goal line was first and 10 at the Houston 16 — three yards behind the right guard to the 13 — on the third-quarter drive that settled for a 34-yard field goal. Six carries in the first half, seven in the second, and the second-half ones went one, one, one, three, three, 12 and −1.
Back in June the preview called Cook one of the more stable backfield profiles in the league, a sixth-place finish among running backs across all 17 games, on which the market and the data had shaken hands. The volume Sunday matched that — 13 of 21 carries, four targets — and the finishing did not, with the goal-line snap and both rushing touchdowns going to the quarterback. That is a single game and a single sneak, not a change in the arrangement. Buffalo is home to the Lions on Thursday the seventeenth, and the number to watch is carries inside the 10.
_Data via nflverse._
When James Cook's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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