James Cook just keeps climbing. The Buffalo Bills running back entered Thursday night’s game against the Detroit Lions needing 130 rushing yards to pass Joe Cribbs and move into fifth place on the franchise’s all-time rushing list.
He got there in the fourth quarter. Cook’s 22-yard run that set up his one-yard touchdown rush a play later pushed him past Cribbs’ 4,445 career rushing yards in a Bills uniform and gave Cook another spot in Buffalo’s record book.
And this one comes with some history behind it. Cribbs arrived in Buffalo as a second-round draft pick in 1980 and immediately became one of the NFL’s most productive running backs. He topped 1,000 yards in each of his first two seasons, then did it again in 1983. After spending the 1984 season in the USFL, Cribbs returned to Buffalo for one final season in 1985.
By the time his Bills career was over, Cribbs had rushed 1,082 times for 4,445 yards and 21 touchdowns across 64 games.
Cook has taken a very different route to essentially the same place. Buffalo selected Cook in the second round of the 2022 NFL Draft, but he wasn’t immediately handed the workload Cribbs received four decades earlier. Cook had just 89 carries as a rookie before becoming the Bills’ primary running back in his second season.
Now, in his fifth season with Buffalo, Cook also passed a player who spent five seasons in a Bills uniform — but he did it on considerably fewer carries. Cook entered the game with 4,316 rushing yards on 855 attempts, 227 fewer carries than Cribbs needed to reach 4,445.
With Cribbs now behind him, only four names remain ahead of Cook on the Bills’ all-time rushing list. Josh Allen entered the night fourth with 4,744 yards, followed by Fred Jackson with 5,646. Both are catchable this season. After that, the climb gets a whole lot steeper: O.J. Simpson sits at 10,183 yards, with Thurman Thomas atop the franchise record book at 11,938.
For now, James Cook can add another line to an already growing résumé. He’s one of the five most prolific rushers in Buffalo Bills history.
