Bills veterans speak about ‘weird’ past struggles vs. Jaguars ahead of Week 3 clash

Ed Oliver and Dion Dawkins spoke about the Buffalo Bills' "weird" past losses to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Kyle Silagyi | Sep 20, 2024

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For as competitive as the Buffalo Bills have been since head coach Sean McDermott took the team's reins in 2017 (the sideline boss has a career-winning percentage of .647%), there’s been one conference opponent that the club has had persisting difficulties against.

Buffalo will host that team next Monday when the Jacksonville Jaguars roll into Orchard Park for a Week 3 clash. The Bills have played against the Jaguars four times throughout McDermott’s tenure, with the coach constructing a 1-3 record against the team from Duval County. McDermott started 1-1 against Jacksonville, falling to the then-No. 3 seed Jaguars in a 2017 Wild Card Round clash before exacting his revenge the next season with a 24-21 win.

The Bills have dropped their last two matchups with Jacksonville, however, this despite being the, on paper, far superior team in each contest. Buffalo was heavily favored despite being the away team in a 2021 Week 9 meeting with a then-Urban Meyer-coached Jaguars team, with Jacksonville coming out on top of a slog of a game to give Meyer his second—and final—NFL win. The Bills’ next loss was slightly less embarrassing but still quite sloppy, as a jet-lagged Buffalo team lost to the Jaguars in London last season by a score of 25-20.

The NFL is demonstrably an ‘any given Sunday’ league where any team can beat its opposition at any time, but the Bills should have comfortably handled Jacksonville in each of their previous two outings. These strange recent matchups are on the minds of several Buffalo veterans as the team prepares for its Week 3 clash, with defensive tackle Ed Oliver telling reporters about the odd vibes that surrounded each contest during his Thursday media availability.

“The London game was a weird game, started very weird,” Oliver said. “It’s just a very weird game, and I addressed the team, I addressed my D-line about that, about how weird these games could be. I remember the game we played in Jacksonville [in 2021]; it was a sunny day, great day, I remember it vividly, but it was just a weird aura. And then playing in London, it was just a weird, I can’t even explain it. It was just a weird game. And I’ve never beat these guys. It’s just weird, man.”

The Bills largely got in their own way in their 2021 9-6 loss, taking 12 penalties and turning the ball over three times in the embarrassing contest. They took another 11 penalties in their 2023 matchup and turned the ball over twice; the Jaguars generally played better last year, as well, with Trevor Lawrence throwing for 315 yards as Travis Etienne picked up 136 yards on the ground.

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Stalwart left tackle Dion Dawkins, who has played in all four of Buffalo’s McDermott-era Jaguars clashes, also spoke about the team’s last two losses, agreeing with Oliver about the strange vibes.

“It is weird,” Dawkins said. “It is. I’ll back Ed on that, it has been weird. It’s been just a weird feel. I would say that it’s weird because we played them in Jacksonville, and then we played them in London. Like, that’s weird. Besides that, I don’t know, I really don’t know. I really don’t know what it is. It’s just the aura, the aura just feels a little different. Maybe it’s the colors, who knows? Maybe it’s just that aqua, I don’t know. That aqua just comes around and it kind of just makes you a little loopy.”

Fortunately for Buffalo, its recent gaffes against the Jaguars won’t have any direct impact on its Week 3 contest. The team is looking to get the proverbial monkey off their back next Monday night by simply sticking to what they know.

“Just be ourselves, truly,” Dawkins said. “Just be ourselves, just do what we’re coached to do, focus on the technique. The technique will take us where we have to go.”

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