FANTASY FOOTBALL NEWS

Hat Trick For James Cook In Week 2

By Jared Smola | Updated on Fri, Sep 13 2024 1:56 PM UTC

Bills RB James Cook scored all three of the team's offensive TDs in Thursday night's win over the Dolphins. The first came in the first quarter on a well-designed misdirection that left Cook wide open in the left flat. He caught a short pass and burst to the pylon for a 17-yard score. Cook hit paydirt on a one-yard plunge in the second quarter and then scored from 49 yards out later in the second to give the Bills a 24-7 lead. He found a nice hole off the right guard and then out-ran former teammate Jordan Poyer's angle to the end zone.

2024 Fantasy Football Impact

Cook finished this game with just 11 carries and one target. That was partly because his three TDs had the Bills playing with a big lead in the second half. But it's worth noting that even in the first half, Cook played just 52% of Buffalo's offensive snaps and handled five of nine RB carries. (RB Ray Davis had three and RB Ty Johnson one.)

The most encouraging thing to come out of this game was Cook's one-yard score. He scored just twice on the ground all last season -- and one of those came from 24 yards out. Cook had only five carries inside the five-yard line all last year. He's already had two through this season's first two games.

If he continues to get at least some of those goal-line looks, Cook has a chance at a top-12 fantasy finish this season in a Bills offense that continues to skew toward the run under OC Joe Brady.

Jared Smola, Lead Analyst

Jared has been with Draft Sharks since 2007. He’s now Lead Analyst, heading up the preseason and weekly projections that fuel your Draft War Room and My Team tools. He currently ranks sixth among 158 analysts in draft rankings accuracy.