Bills, the NFL’s Anti-Cowboys, Continue to Sign Their Top Young Talent Early

Greg Auman

NFL Reporter

As exasperated Cowboys fans wait to see if and when a deal for Micah Parsons might finally get done, the Buffalo Bills continue to test the opposite limits of NFL contract strategy, locking up their youngest players as soon as possible.

On Wednesday, the Bills announced a four-year, $48 million extension for running back James Cook. He’s the fourth member of their 2022 draft class to sign a new deal this offseason, all of them a year ahead of free agency. Add in an extension for 2021 first-rounder Greg Rousseau, who was to play on his fifth-year extension this fall, and a massive new deal for quarterback Josh Allen, and Buffalo has invested $637 million in extending players who weren’t even entering free agency.

It’s smart for Buffalo to keep its young core together. The Bills have won five straight division titles, with 11-plus wins and at least one playoff win in every season as well. Their postseason success has been in the shadow of the Chiefs — they’ve lost to Kansas City to end four of their last five playoff runs — but this keeps them as the closest challengers on the AFC side.

Their aggressive pre-emptive extensions, and trusting that a player’s strong performance in his first three seasons is likely to continue, allows them to stay ahead of the ever-increasing market value at all positions. They’re an absolute foil to the Cowboys, who waited and waited before re-signing quarterback Dak Prescott and receiver CeeDee Lamb, and continue to wait very publicly on Parsons.

The four 2022 draft picks who have received extensions should want to sign new deals. Cook, for instance, has made just $4.6 million in three seasons, so the guaranteed money alone in his new deal is six times more than his career earnings. It’s even more so the case for Buffalo’s 2022 third-rounder, linebacker Terrel Bernard, fifth-round receiver Khalil Shakir and sixth-round cornerback Christian Benford.

A quick recap of those extensions:

Cook, 25, has made the Pro Bowl and rushed for 1,000-plus yards in each of the past two seasons, leading the league with 16 rushing touchdowns in 2024. Critics will note he played only 45 percent of Buffalo’s offensive snaps last year — nobody with more rushing yards played a lower percentage — but he’s averaged 4.9 yards per carry and could certainly take on a larger role.

Benford, 24, might be the gem of the class, ranked by Pro Football Focus as the NFL’s No. 6 cornerback last season. If you look at yards per target allowed, his 5.4 is very close to Denver’s Patrick Surtain (5.3). Benford’s four-year, $69 million deal ranks just 19th among cornerbacks, and like the other 2022 draft picks, it doesn’t start until 2026, so it could be a considerable value in a year or two.
Shakir, 25, got a deal in anticipation of a larger role, more than one commensurate with his production to this point. Shakir has seven total touchdown catches in his three seasons in Buffalo, a number he could easily exceed this season. It’s telling to the positional values that Shakir gets more money ($53 million) as a middle-of-the-road receiver than Cook gets ($48 million) as a Pro Bowl running back.
Bernard, 26, broke out as a first-year starter in 2023 with 143 tackles and 6.5 sacks, and while he took a step back in production last season, it wasn’t so much so that Buffalo didn’t want to extend him as a leader in the middle of the defense. His four-year, $52 million deal ranks 10th among inside linebackers, but is significantlly less than that of Chicago’s Tremaine Edmunds, whom Bernard replaced in Buffalo.
Rousseau, 25, has 25 sacks in four seasons, including eight in 2024, and graded out as PFF’s No. 15 edge rusher last season. He has yet to have a double-digit sack season, but has had at least a share of the team lead in sacks twice in the past three years. If he takes that step forward in 2025, he’ll do so as he moves into a four-year, $80 million contract that pays him half what the league’s top edge rushers make.

Even the Allen deal goes against the norm for high-dollar quarterbacks, as Buffalo tore up his existing contract and gave him a substantial raise on a six-year, $330 million extension. Had the Bills waited until he had perhaps a year left on his contract, other elite quarterbacks would have raised the market value for the next Allen deal. Buffalo is hardly the only NFL team getting ahead like this. For instance, the Jets have locked up their two superstars from the 2022 draft in corner Sauce Gardner and receiver Garrett Wilson.

Put it all together, and the Bills have spent $637 million this year to lock up six players key to their recent success, kept them off the open market and put that core under contract through the 2029 season. That’s basically a five-year plan to help them stay atop the division. They have $170 million in cap space already committed for 2029, with only the Eagles and 49ers spending more that far into the future.

The trust is that the same people who have guided the Bills to five straight division titles will be the best ones to help them get the next five.

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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