Bills star OT relishing in team's underdog role: 'Hit everybody with uppercuts'

Buffalo Bills offensive tackle Dion Dawkins is excited to see the team doubted by national pundits amid its offseason roster turnover.

Kyle Silagyi | Jul 19, 2024

Sep 8, 2022; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Rams linebacker Leonard Floyd (54) defends against Buffalo Bills offensive tackle Dion Dawkins (73) in the second quarter at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

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It’s a phrase that’s uttered hundreds of times throughout each football season: “The NFL is a business.”

There are billions of dollars circulating throughout the league, with NFL-imposed regulations to ensure parity often prompting difficult decisions from team executives. Clubs have to part ways with players beloved by both the organization and fanbase each offseason for a bevy of reasons, whether it be the individual is aging, they no longer factor into the team’s salary cap, etc.

Knowing that it’s a business doesn’t necessarily make transactions easier to stomach. There are real-world lives, relationships, and emotions in play—a player switching teams doesn’t nullify every bond they established with their former teammates. This is a notion Buffalo Bills stalwart left tackle Dion Dawkins has had to process throughout the 2024 offseason as the team’s roster has shifted around him; Buffalo parted ways with players like Stefon Diggs, Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, Tre’Davious White, Mitch Morse, and Gabriel Davis in the offseason, eliminating from its locker room several key voices who have been major contributors throughout the team’s recent stretch of perennial contention.

An eight-year member of the Bills organization himself, Dawkins has grown close with several of the now-departed names. It’s been strange for the offensive lineman to navigate the team’s offseason workouts without several of his tenured teammates, but the 30-year-old realizes it’s simply the nature of the beast.

“I think, every year, the team looks different,” Dawkins said during a recent appearance on NFL Network’s The Insiders. “We play in a league where there are going to be changes of pieces, pieces are going to shuffle, the chessboard pieces are going to do what they do. When you lose a guy like Stefon [Diggs], you lose a lot of character. You lose a lot of, I would say, attitude and swag, because Diggs is very comfortable in who he was and he brings a lot of energy everywhere he goes.

“I think Beane and the people that are upstairs, the management who runs and gets the guys here, they do a good job of keeping the guys in a consistent, not drastic changes, where it’s just like, ‘Oh, Stefon is gone?’ But we have guys that have learned, we have guys that have been there, and we have guys that are going to fill those positions. I know that I can try to paint it however I can, but Diggs was one of my favorite teammates, man. He was just himself and he had a lot of passion. I think, if we’re talking about Diggs, he’s the biggest change, and [Jordan] Poyer, and Micah [Hyde], I mean, shoot, man, you’re right, there are a lot of guys that are not there.”

“Everybody’s counting us out, which I’m cool with. We could fly underneath that radar, and hit everybody with uppercuts.”

Great stuff from Dion Dawkins on the remodeled #Bills and more on The Insiders.

📺📱💻 Full episodes: https://t.co/RV7mRM4pQk pic.twitter.com/du72UEwgWm
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) July 19, 2024

The offseason turnover leaves Buffalo in a bit of a strange position as it approaches the 2024 season. The team is still generally stout—as any club helmed by one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks would figure to be—but national prognosticators are perhaps a bit bearish on the team’s ceiling compared to years past given its omissions and unproven supplements. Dawkins is relishing in this idea, as it’s been some time since the Bills have been viewed as an underdog.

“This is the NFL,” the three-time Pro Bowler said. “Guys come, guys go, guys have to be ready. I think, regardless of who is in those spots, we know that they’re going to give it their all. No. 14, 21, 23—all those numbers might not have those same faces, but we’re shooting for the stars. Everybody is counting us out, which I’m cool with. We can fly underneath that radar and hit everybody with uppercuts. I’m perfectly fine with it.”

Dawkins feels as though Buffalo showed promising signs of cohesion throughout its offseason workouts, but June practices can only go so far in terms of establishing team-wide chemistry. The bulk of the work, per Dawkins, will take place up the I-90 at Rochester’s St. John Fisher University as the team works through training camp.

“It’s a different flow but I think over this OTA journey, it’s been good,” Dawkins said. “It’s been very, very good. The young guys and the new guys have caught on to what we do here and how we play here and how we practice and how we go to and from work. They have jumped on board, and it’s a good pace.

“It’s a good pace now, but honestly, camp is going to show it all. We can’t fake it and we can’t lie about it. It’ll show. If we’re hurting, it’ll show. If we’re not, it will show. If the beat is still clicking and the train is still chugging along, then you’ll see that, as well.”

Fans will have their first opportunity to see the team’s reworked roster take the field when training camp kicks off on July 24.

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