Head to head · July 2026 draft-day read
Derrick Henry or James Cook?
Derrick Henry and James Cook are a near-tie on 2025 production (16.0 vs 16.8 half-PPR PPG). At matching July 2026 ADP, the pick came down to your roster build, not a market tiebreak.
This week's projections are in the Week 5 start/sit card below. The July 2026 draft-day read that follows is opinion, framed from the cited 2025 data.
This week's start/sit · Half-PPR
Week 5: start Derrick Henry or James Cook?
Coin flip: Derrick Henry and James Cook are 0.7 pts apart.
In 2024–25, projection gaps under 1 point went the higher player's way about 52% of the time — close to a coin toss.
What does differ: Derrick Henry has the higher floor (8.1 vs 7.4) and BUF is implied for more points (25.5 vs BAL's 25.3).
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RB · BAL
Derrick Henry
15.3 pts projected · range 8.1–24.2
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RB · BUF
James Cook
14.6 pts projected · range 7.4–23.6
2026 season · the games so far
2026 head-to-head so far
Through Week 4, Derrick Henry has out-scored James Cook by 6.1 PPR points per game, 22.7 to 16.6 (4 games each).
Through Week 4 · Week 4 in progress — 15 of 16 games final · nflverse stats as of
| Derrick Henry | Metric | James Cook |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Games | 4 |
| 22.7 | PPR points per game | 16.6 |
| 22.3 | Carries per game | 17.5 |
| 7% | Target share | 9% |
| 59% | Snap share | 68% |
| 18.5 | PPR points per game, last 3 games | 18.9 |
Purple marks the higher figure. Shares are team-relative, averaged per game; snap share counts only games with a published snap count. "Last 3 games" is each player's own last 3 games played. A dash means no 2026 figure. 2026 regular season via nflverse.
Game by game: Derrick Henry · James Cook
Draft-day record · July 2026
The July 2026 draft-day read
This is the July 2026 pre-draft read, kept as published. Every ADP and market figure on this page comes from the Fantasy Football Calculator snapshot of Jul 15, 2026 and is not updated in-season — 2026 drafts are over and ADP has stopped moving. In-season tools
Metric by metric
The tale of the tape
| Derrick Henry | Metric | James Cook |
|---|---|---|
| 9.5 (RB6) | Draft ADP (July 2026) | 10.5 (RB7) |
| 10 | Overall ADP rank (July 2026) | 11 |
| 16.0 | Fantasy points / game | 16.8 |
| +5.5 | Points over expected (FPOE) | — |
| 4.9% | Target share | — |
| 2.0% | Target share, last 3 games (2025) | — |
| 24 | Sleeper search rank (July 2026) | 5 |
Purple marks the better figure. A dash means the engine did not cite that metric for that player. 2025 regular season via nflverse · ADP via Fantasy Football Calculator, Jul 15, 2026 snapshot.
xFP (expected fantasy points) is what a typical player would score with the same targets, carries and field position. FPOE (points over expected) is actual points minus xFP, per game.
The consensus read
July 2026 drafts separated them by a hair — Derrick Henry at ADP 9.5, James Cook at ADP 10.5. On 2025 production it is 16.0 vs 16.8 half-PPR points per game.
What had to be true
This call flipped on beliefs that were checkable at the time. Every belief was tied to a checkpoint: the exact data point that would confirm or deny it, with its value at the time of the July 2026 read.
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Checkpoint · Derrick Henry
Target share, last 3 games vs season (2025)
2.0% last 3 vs 4.9% season (2025) · as of July 2026
Strong move if you believed
Derrick Henry's late-2025 target dip was matchup noise, not a role change
Poor move if instead
Derrick Henry's target share is fading from the season baseline
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Checkpoint · Derrick Henry
Points over expected (FPOE) per game, season (2025)
+5.5 pts/gm vs expectation (2025) · as of July 2026
Strong move if you believed
Derrick Henry's scoring over expected (xFP) is skill, not variance
Poor move if instead
Derrick Henry's scoring over expected regresses to the xFP baseline
Sources: Fantasy Football Calculator · Sleeper · nflverse. Every figure here is a value the analysis engine cited from the underlying data. Stats are 2025 regular season via nflverse (CC-BY 4.0); ADP via Fantasy Football Calculator (Jul 15, 2026 snapshot, not updated in-season).
FantasyTools analysis is opinion for entertainment purposes only — not betting, financial, or professional advice.