On March 16, the Buffalo Bills acquired Stefon Diggs from the Minnesota Vikings.
Bills offensive tackle Dion Dawkins didn’t learn of the trade via television on social media. Instead, his phone started buzzing nonstop.
“It was definitely a lot of excitement,” Dawkins said on The Zach Gelb Show. “I really didn’t know what was really going on. I was like, ‘Hold on, why is everybody messaging me about Diggs, Diggs, Diggs, Diggs, Diggs?’”
Then it made sense.
Diggs, 26, has averaged 76.3 catches for 1,000 yards and 7.7 touchdowns over the last three seasons.
“[He’s] a great piece to our team, and it’s going to help Josh tremendously,” Dawkins said, referring to Bills quarterback Josh Allen. “But it was just a lot of excitement and a lot of emotion for the Buffalo Bills community and for our organization.”
Unfortunately for the Bills – and every NFL team – players, by and large, haven’t been able to gather in person.
“This is the time of the offseason where teams bond,” Dawkins said. “This is where teams go out and go to lunch and go to dinner and link up and do those type of things. Because [of the coronavirus], we haven’t had access to do it. So it’s just been a lot of [social media], a lot of texting, a lot of basics.”
While Zoom, FaceTime, and Instagram will have to suffice for now, the Bills enter the 2020 season with high expectations. They have made the playoffs in two of the last three seasons and are seeking their first AFC East title since 1995.
“Well, I think this is going to be our hardest season yet, just because last year we showed how good we really were, so everybody is going to be coming for us,” Dawkins said. All the pressure is, I guess, on us, which, we really don’t care. We’re going to try to win every game. Eventually every game will lead us to a championship. It will lead us to a division championship, and it will lead us to where we want to be. Winning the conference is what we want to do, and every team’s goal is to win a championship. It is [ours] for sure.”
Dawkins, a second-round pick out of Temple in 2017, does not have any individual goals for this season. He just wants to win.
“If the team wins, we all win,” he said. “A winning team, everybody wins, whether it’s on that team [or] in the future for a contract. A winning program, everybody wins. I just want to be the best left tackle to play the game. I want to be a dominant player in this league. I want to have that stamp on my chest, and I want that name on my back to mean something. I’m down here in Florida grinding every day, day in and day out, so I can get out on that field when the season comes and prove it.”