Dion Dawkins, Buffalo Bills agree to terms on three-year contract extension
The Bills are locking in their standout left tackle through 2027.
Dion Dawkins loves a good analogy. On Monday, the Buffalo Bills left tackle said he thinks of each new chapter in his life like being reborn. That rebirth happened again when he came to Buffalo in 2017.
“I was born, and Buffalo was my mother and my father,” Dawkins. “So, who the heck wants to walk away from mom and dad? Because I don't.”
And Dawkins isn’t walking away. Instead, he has agreed to terms on a three-year extension with the Buffalo Bills, the team announced Monday.
The Bills are locking in their standout left tackle through 2027. Dawkins is staying in Buffalo, but not before causing a little scare.
The Buffalo Bills left tackle teased on social media Monday morning that his time in Buffalo was done. He posted on X and on Instagram stories an image with oddly spaced text reading: “It was good while / It lasted Buffalo / Excited for this next chapter (of) my football career / Wonder if (it’s) ok to eat ranch now”. Not long after, the news of his extension broke.
Dawkins said he “woke up trolling,” but also that he was just being himself.
“I don’t really see it as a prank, you know?” he said. “I’m an entertainer, I'm gonna entertain. So you know, I like … I was missing the Mafia. Simple as that. I was missing the Bills Mafia, and I had to figure out which way I could do to get a little bit of something back and forth. And, you know, they love it, they hate it, but it's me. I can't change.”
Dawkins was headed into the final year of his contract and was scheduled to count $16.6 million against the cap in 2024. This will allow the Bills to stretch out his base salary through 2027, and will lower his cap hit for 2024. Dawkins was previously playing on a deal that ranked 26th among offensive tackles for 2024, per Spotrac. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports it is a three-year, $60.5 million extension to now make Dawkins the fourth highest-paid tackle in the league.
Dawkins said it was important to him to make sure his deal also helped the rest of the team get paid.
Dawkins had a strong 2023 season, with a number of teammates and coaches saying it was his best season yet. Dawkins agreed.
“If we're talking about me personally, I did have the best season of my career last year. I figured my niche out, I figured out what I needed,” Dawkins said.
He earned a Pro-Bowl nod, and he was the Bills' nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year award for a second consecutive season. Now, Dawkins looks to build on that.
“I'm just gonna get better,” Dawkins said. “I'm planning on more Pro Bowls, more All-Pros, more of all that, if we're talking about self stuff. Like I'm planning on being the best version of myself, again, and again and again and again and again and again. And for the community … I can never leave that community. Like I wouldn't walk away for nothing, you know? But myself, I'm going to just keep growing and trying my best to be the best version of myself and to help my teammates lead and become men and grow into this life of an NFL athlete.”
Dawkins’ wide-ranging Zoom call on Monday even had a special guest. A certain “Sean from Orchard Park” joined the call, first without his camera on. It was, naturally, coach Sean McDermott who decided to jump on, where he took the chance to ask Dawkins if he would sing some karaoke.
Dawkins obliged, remixing “Sweet Home, Alabama” to be about Buffalo.
To Dawkins, the light-hearted move from his coach represented another reason to keep coming back to Buffalo.
“Like, come on, that’s my head coach,” Dawkins said. “My head coach just jumped on a Zoom call when he could be chilling with his family just to say a couple things and to put a smile on my face. So, it’s those little wins that the coaches and the people here go over and beyond to make it special.”