The Buffalo Bills started the same five offensive linemen in every game that mattered during the 2024 NFL season. That kind of consistency is so important at a positional grouping where communication is essential. Of course, the ability to communicate with teammates is important with every positional grouping, but when we’re talking about the group whose job is to protect the league’s MVP, it’s even more important.
Arguably, the second-most important position on an NFL roster is the left tackle (or right tackle if a quarterback is left-handed). The blindside protector is the one who protects the quarterback from the hits that could alter seasons and careers. Once a team has a quarterback, their next move is usually to find that person to watch his back. In Buffalo’s case, they had the blindside protector prior to having the quarterback.
In today’s edition of “90 players in 90 days,” we discuss that blindside protector, a player that we already sshnow is going to perform consistently well so long as he stays healthy.
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Name: Dion Dawkins
Number: 73
Position: T
Height/Weight: 6’5” 320 lbs.
Age: 31 (32 on 4/26/2026)
Experience/Draft: 9; selected by Buffalo in the second round (No. 63 overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft
College: Temple
Acquired: Second-round draft choice
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Dawkins enters the first year of the three-year, $60.06 million extension he signed last March. Of that total, $37.455 million is guaranteed. Other than Josh Allen, Dawkins has the highest cap hit on the club for 2025, with a total of $19,979,833 committed to the Schnowman. If Buffalo were to release Dawkins, the dead cap hit would be $33,774,866, an astronomical amount.
2024 Recap: Dawkins made 16 starts last season, playing in every game but one—that meaningless regular-season finale against the New England Patriots. He did miss a play here or there with minor injuries, and in some blowout games he came out, but otherwise, he was the team’s left tackle throughout the entire season. Dawkins committed 13 penalties, which was near the highest amount among NFL offensive tackles. He only allowed three sacks on the year, though. Pro Football Focusgraded him at a 72.9 overall, which was 33rd among all offensive tackles. His 81.2 pass-blocking grade was sixteenth, and his 68.7 run-blocking grade was forty-fourth.
Positional outlook: Dawkins is Buffalo’s starting left tackle, and Spencer Brown will be the starting right tackle when healthy.
2025 Offseason: Dawkins is healthy and ready to roll for Week One. He has participated in practices throughout the summer. He was ranked No. 42 on NFL Network’s list of the 100 best players in the league for 2025.
2025 Season outlook: Dion Dawkins is one of the NFL’s best left tackles. Not too shabby for a second-round pick out of Temple. Many of us here likely remember when he was merely the injury fill-in for Cordy Glenn, the Bills’ incumbent left tackle for the 2017 season. Dawkins’ emergence allowed the Bills to flip Glenn to the Cincinnati Bengals for a first-round draft pick, and it also allowed them to trade up in the 2018 NFL Draft to select Josh Allen. So, in a convoluted way, we may have Dawkins to thank for Allen.
We don’t need to do that, though. We can just bask in the happiness of having someone so fun, so entertaining, and so talented on the team to protect that franchise quarterback. Dawkins seems like the kind of guy you don’t want to line up against in a game, but he’s exactly the kind of guy you want to hang out with in the locker room and after the game concludes. He’s the ideal teammate, and the perfect person for this roster.