Kirby Jackson

He signed a 2 year $19.75M extension. I rounded $9.875M to $10M. https://overthecap.com/player/joe-mixon/5634

I watched a lot of the Texans. He was a 2 down guy. Regardless of what he did with the Bengals, the Texans wanted him as a 2 down guy. Ogunbowale played 3rd downs and was the receiving back.

RB values will increase after the years of Saquon & Henry. Mixon signed for $10M last year, has more miles and is a 2 down guy. Cook outperformed him all year. If Cook went into FA today, what do you believe he would get? As you said, that $5.5M number isn’t in the ball park. It would be twice that without question. He may not get to $15M but there’s zero chance that he’s less than $10M. Now he’s in position to get market value. He’s proven to be a very valuable member of this offense.

All fair and the argument would be that Cook has just over 4x the touches with good efficiency. I suspect Cook ends up at $12.5M and Johnson at $2.5M-$3M.

Convienent. Well to refresh your memory, Brown said that “passing” needed to improve 2 months ago (in the middle of a long winning streak). Later that week, veteran Brandon Graham talked publicly about the strained relationship between the QB and the star WR. It was the Diggs situation all over and in the media. Now THAT is a distraction to the team, not a guy asking for more money. The Eagles didn’t send a message (to anyone but the Chiefs). They got over it, moved on, and had a parade yesterday.

Did you have this same energy about AJ Brown with the Eagles this year? Were his “antics” (which were way worse by the way) not what they needed to get over the hump?

Gross stats don’t tell the story of effectiveness. They tell someone how often you did something. Tony Pollard had 260/1079/5? You’re saying that’s better? What about Connor at 236/1094/8? Mixon at 245/1016/11? Najee at 263/1043/6? This isn’t 1994 anymore (or even a decade ago). Advanced stats and efficiency stats are infinitely more important than gross stats. You know that. That’s how players are judged in 2025. That’s how you end up with Lamar’s 2023 MVP season (while receiving 49 of 50 votes). Teams care WAY more about EPA than they do about rushing yards. They care about “how did you do when you got the ball?” That’s why analytics departments and people are all over the league. They’re measuring the effectiveness of each player on each play. You are making the effiency point with your Ty Johnson illustration. This was Johnson’s 6th year. It was his 4th fewest touches and he produced his 2nd most scrimmage yards on that. He made $1.3M this year. You can expect that number to double next year. It isn’t because of how many total yards or touches he had!! It’s because of how impactful those touches were, as you so eloquently laid out.

He has 70 less scrimmage touches from college to now than Ray Davis. He’s ascending and fresh. The Bills already have the complementary guy in Davis and likely will bring back the 3rd piece in Ty Johnson. Effiency matters more than gross stats as you illustrated with the Mostert example. I was saying, “if you’re trying to mislead people with gross stats why are you conveniently leaving out that he had the most rushing TDs in the league despite being 20th in carries?” Cook was 5th amongst starters in YPC, and scored at an alarming rate (on a team with a QB that ran for a dozen more). He also never fumbles. He was a top 5ish RB last year that peaked in the playoffs. He’s absolutely the best skill player on the Bills. I’m also not a fan of the 2 down back argument. The Bills don’t want/need him to play as a pass blocker. They didn’t use Shady in those situations either. Cook stays fresh by not taking a beating picking up blitzing linebackers. That’s not a negative. Johnson is perfect in that role and as a receiving back. Now should they have had him out there on the final drive? Of course, he’s their best skill player (not including JA obviously). Cook is an ascending back, that’s arguably a top 5 guy and certainly top 10. The Bills don’t have any other skill players that are close to top 5 or 10. RBs are cheap too. They’re paying their second TE $10M a year. They can afford to allocate the $ to Cook because they have $17,761,391 in cap hits allocated to WR. For comparison, the Seahawks have over $62.5M in cap hits dedicated to 2 WRs (obviously they’ll try to lower that but you get the point). The Bills can afford a bigger investment in Cook because they don’t have big money tied up with the other skill guys.

Are you trying to use volume stats to downplay Cook’s value? If so, add TDs. He will always be a part of a committee. He was in college too. Henry, Gibbs, Barkley and Irving were the only starting RBs with higher YPC. Cook did so while seeing the 3rd fewest reps against 2 deep defenses. If you want to talk about how valuable he is, don’t try to give rushing yards or carries as your argument. His efficiency is what matters. McDermott and Beane believe in a RB by committee and that goes back to the Carolina days with Williams & Stewart.

Looking to trade Cook in one of those deals is fine and may be on the table. You need to stop looking at “positional numbers” and look at “player value.” If you think that Knox should get more than Cook, we disagree. The value of the RB increased this year. $12.5M AAV with $24M GTD would slot him between Mixon and Taylor. That’s seems fair. Again, I’m not going to argue on how players perceive this. I know. The Diggs situation and the Cook situation are different. Diggs wanted the ball and to be the guy. Cook wants to get paid. It’s apples and oranges. If the Bills don’t pay Cook it isn’t because of how he’s handled it. That’s kind of the point. FANS care about how it was handled. TEAMS don’t care about that. The Eagles superstar WR, called out the QB a couple of months ago. They were up 34-0 in the Super Bowl 5 days ago. They didn’t “send him a message.” Reading through this thread has been cringe. People wanting to jettison the best offensive skill player because he asked for $15M is the kind of insecure nonsense that used to plague this fan base. We need to act like we’ve been there before. Enough of the Rudy mentality!! We don’t need palm trees to recruit. We don’t need to protect ourselves emotionally in case one of our players leaves. It isn’t “because they are a bad guy or we aren’t good enough for them.” It’s a business and the Bills are operating in the deep end. Pull the emotions out of this and look at it objectively as Beane is. It isn’t about, “he shouldn’t have gone public and now he should go.” It’s about, “what is he worth to the Bills and can a deal get done at that number?” That’s how this will, and should, play out.

From a players perspective, how do you think “sending a message” to one of your best players is perceived? Do you think that will be a positive for players and agents in terms of recruiting? If you think it’s a positive, you are not very tuned into the modern athlete. And yes, $12.5M is basically nothing for your best skill player and a key piece of your offense. That’s Dawson Knox money.

I don’t necessarily disagree with any of this. My thinking (as of today) is that it ends up at $12.5M(ish). I’m curious as to where each other’s “hard line” number is. That’ll determine whether or not it gets done. At $12.5M I would expect both sides to be good with it. Something like 3 years $37.5M with $24M GTD feels realistic for everyone. That’s a bump from Mixon but less than Taylor (with almost as much GTD).

Lol, no it won’t. Beane knows the numbers. Beane knows roughly where it will end up and knows where the Bills will be willing to go. This has ZERO impact on the negotiation. He might be a little annoyed but he’s not biting off his nose to spite his face. The real world doesn’t work like Draft Day with Kevin Costner. It’s not that dramatic. Cook scrubbing social media has ZERO impact as to whether he is here or not. If he has a hard line at $13M and the Bills have a hard line at $10M he may not be here. How it has been handled isn’t a factor. I spent a bunch of years around a pro locker room. I can count on zero hands how many times a guy wanting more money was a negative in the locker room. In fact, it is the opposite. They WANT their teammates paid. Fans get annoyed by how it’s handled not players.

Okay, so you don’t like the way that he handled it. Does that now mean that we shouldn’t pay him? Is he less important to the team? Do you think that this is the first that the team is hearing about it? Do you think that players look at him less favorably for this (spoiler: they don’t)? The Bills certainly knew this before he balled out against KC. The only things that’s changed is that fans now know. MANY on this board, have gone from “he’s been great” to “get him out of here” because he scrubbed his social media!! Lol, everyone knew he’d ask for money. All that’s changed is that we now know. The reactions from many on here are asinine. @BigDingus hit the nail on the head.

Perfectly said!! That’s the point that I’ve been attempting to make WAY less articulately than you just did. This isn’t about “should the Bills give Cook $15M?” This is about how insane it is that fans are willing to dump one of the best 5 players on this team because he scrubbed his social media and said he wants a couple million more than fans wanted him to be paid. (Why fans CARE what a guy makes is beyond me if the cap implications are minimal). Great post!!! Lol, that’s the entire point!! How much would you have paid him per year if you never heard what he wanted? If the answer is $10M+ which it obviously is from pretty much everyone, what’s so different other than you now know (which is extremely common btw)? Is he less important to the team now? He was great down the stretch and isn’t easily replaced. His teammates love him. People NOW want to replace him because he scrubbed his social media? 🤣🤣 That’s so ridiculous. 🤣🤣

Lol, I just put your words back into a sentence. That’s what YOU said. You were willing to go to $33M but now you don’t think he belongs on the team. I’m sorry if that highlighted the absurdity of that for you. Those were your words. It obviously sounds crazy. The only thing that’s changed from 3 weeks ago is that he said what he wants publicly. Do you think that was a shock to the Bills or do you think that they have known exactly what he wanted prior to this social media incident?

This was more about the cap not Cook. Honestly, it’s a Bengals conversation.

They won 10 games with Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. They were really good until they collapsed over the last month or so. Going from those guys to Lawrence (who I don’t think is great) probably has them at like 12-5. That’s contending.

Touche

Fun fact, he’s a P&C producer now with my company. As leaders, we have to coach the new producers in our Academy once a quarter. When he was new he was in my group (it’s only like 4 people) and I was super excited lol. He couldn’t believe that I knew who he was. p.s. I also had former MLB player Casper Wells in another group. He is a great guy.

This is the right answer. When he left the Bills he was statistically the worst QB ever. He should have never been put in the first place and the next year he shouldn’t have been an option to start.

So did you question it when he was the best player on offense vs. KC? He certainly didn’t just become “this guy” over the last 3 weeks. So he went from a guy that was the best player on offense vs. KC, and a guy you were willing to give $33M to, to a guy that you now want off of the team because of a couple of social media comments? 🤣🤣

Of course. I think Monson was basically saying, Mike Brown can’t cry poor. If he wants to keep that team together he can but he will be paying some big signing bonuses up front. He’s going to be pulling from the profits he’s pocketing and paying the big up front cash numbers.

This feels timely: