Hard Knocks checks box on James Cook hold-in

The first episode of Hard Knocks featuring the Buffalo Bills ignored the contract battle with running back James Cook. In episode two, it was unavoidable.

Still, the 55-minute installment kept the issue to a minimum, checking the box and moving on.

“The business side can be rough,” narrator Liev Schreiber says within the first ten minutes of the episode. “G.M. Brandon Beane is dealing with his first hold-in in nine seasons. Star running back James Cook is in the final year of the contract he signed as a rookie. Cook wants his next one to be a bit bigger.”

That’s accurate, but it glosses over the fact that the contract Cook signed was non-negotiable. It was driven by his draft slot, and he had no power over the money he has been paid through three seasons, or the money he would have been paid in 2025.

“Contract disputes can be awkward,” Schreiber adds. “No one likes them. But at least they’ve evolved. Cook is with his teammates every day, present like a pro.”

“The old-school way of holding out is the player wasn’t around,” G.M. Brandon Beane says in the next shot. “They were working out at some other facility, they’re not in meetings. The hold-in that’s kind of going on these days is, the player is in meetings participating in most everything except actual practice itself.”

Again, that’s accurate. But it’s a direct product of changes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement that make it much harder for players who are under contract to withhold services by staying away. So some of them show up and choose not to practice, citing business considerations or an injury — real, embellished, or imagined.

“Our philosophy is to draft, develop, and re-sign our own,” Beane says. “And it starts with ownership, them giving us the resources to do that. The perfect world is James back on the practice field and, at some point, you know, we’re able to keep him here in Buffalo. It doesn’t have to happen now. I’m hopeful a year from now that James Cook is wearing the Buffalo Bills’ red, white, and blue. I love James so much, you feel like he’s a guy you drafted and developed. And a lot of times, these guys feel your sons or your younger brothers, however you look at it. I also have to manage the whole team and the cap and the cash and all those things, and so the whole puzzle has to work together.”

And that was it. No further mention was made of the situation, even though it was the biggest news coming from the preseason opener, on which the latter phases of the episode focused. Bills coach Sean McDermott wanted Cook to play in the game, and Cook declined.

Think about that one. The most newsworthy aspect of the Bills’ first preseason game was swept completely under the rug by Hard Knocks.

It’s no surprise. The Bills didn’t want to do Hard Knocks, and the Bills undoubtedly exercised their ability to leave anything they wanted on the cutting-room floor.

They surely would have preferred to ignore Cook altogether. That would have been pretty ridiculous.

Then again, not mentioning his refusal to honor the head coach’s request to play in the preseason opener was kind of ridiculous, too.