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Asked whether he expects Cook to fully participate, McDermott replied: "I do. I couldn't be more pleased with James and him being here on time and ready to go. I had a chance to greet him yesterday, shake his hand and look him in the eye. He's ready to go."

Cook led the NFL with 16 rushing touchdowns last season, and he ran for 1,009 yards on 207 carries. The 2022 second-round draft pick went public this offseason with his desire to be among the highest-paid running backs in the NFL.

He is entering the final season of his rookie contract, and his $5.701 million cap hit ranks 18th at this position for 2025. Cook skipped the voluntary portion of offseason workouts and participated in mandatory minicamp to avoid fines. He would have been fined $50,000 per day if he had not reported to training camp, and it would've prevented him from accruing a season toward free agency.

Here are other highlights from McDermott's pre-practice press conference Wednesday:

• Tight end (hamstring), right tackle Spencer Brown (back), center Sedrick Van Pan-Granger (calf) and wide receiver/kick returner Laviska Shenault (lower leg strain) were unable to practice Wednesday because of injury.

"I'm not really going to get into timetables. I don't really know too much in that area right now," McDermott said. "We'll find out a little bit more as we go one day at a time with those four."

• Brown, who was placed on the physically unable to perform list Tuesday, did not participate in mandatory minicamp. He has a history of back injuries, said McDermott, who described this as a "flare-up." Knox was placed on the non-football injury list because of the hamstring injury.

• Bills edge rusher Joey Bosa has recovered from the calf injury that kept him out of offseason training activities and mandatory minicamp, but the team will have a "rep plan" for the free-agent acquisition, McDermott said. 

"We had a number of guys who spent quite a bit of time following the OTA and minicamp period in the spring getting themselves healthy," McDermott said. "Spending extra time in Buffalo, staying there long enough until they felt healthy enough to leave and go train on their own, Joey being one of them. Again, I couldn't be happier with the work he's put in to come back healthy and ready  to go. We'll have a rep plan for him and a way to manage things to the best of our ability to try to keep him as healthy as possible, and we look forward to watching him this morning at practice."

• Bills defensive tackles Michael Hoecht and Larry Ogunjobi will be suspended six games to start the 2025 season for violations of the NFL's policy against performance-enhancing drugs. The coaching staff will manage their practice reps so as to prepare others to assume their respective roles, but the Bills will have to pivot from that plan if there are injuries on the interior defensive line. 

"It's something we'll have to manage," McDermott said. "It's going to be a day-to-day type of deal managing that, because there's probably going to be some bumps and bruises that come up along the way, in particular at that position. ... We're just going to have to stay on top of it. If healthy enough, we'll be able to execute the plan that we have at the right time. If we're not healthy enough at the position, we'll have to adjust. 

"I think the key here is, we're going to be challenged depth-wise early in the season because of that at this point alone. We have to get our young guys ready to go, and we have to get them settled in as quickly as possible here."

• Deone Walker, a rookie defensive tackle drafted in the fourth round, will not be on a rep count in camp, McDermott said. The Bills will monitor how Walker's back responds to practices. The injury impacted his production as a junior at the University of Kentucky last season and caused him to fall in the draft.