When the Buffalo Bills’ offense was humming this summer, the mantra “everyone eats” was the neat explanation players and coaches agreed was the secret sauce.
No player – wide receiver, tight end or running back – cared who got the ball. Eventually, the ball was going to find everyone.
But that hasn’t been the case for Bills tight end Dawson Knox. He’s played in five games, and his five targets rank dead last on the team. Knox is tied with third-string rookie running back Ray Davis, who also has five targets in the passing game.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen said the team’s everyone eats slogan is “fine and dandy when everyone is, but sometimes there’s people left out.”
Knox signed a four-year, $52 million extension in 2022, making him one of the top five highest-paid tight ends in the NFL. The Bills restructured his contract before this season to give the team extra cap space. Even still, Knox’s $7.72 million cap hit ranks No. 8 on the Bills in 2024 behind Allen, Stefon Diggs (now on the Houston Texans), Dion Dawkins, Von Miller, Matt Milano, Ed Oliver, and Taron Johnson.
No pass catcher in Buffalo’s offense makes more money than Knox. Allen knows the sixth-year tight end needs more opportunities in the passing game.
“He’s been one guy that we’ve got to get going. We know that,” Allen said. “We’re better when 88 is playing well. … We have a lot of guys, with a lot of different skill sets on this team and we want to utilize everybody’s talents. And (Dawson is) definitely a talented player that we got to utilize.”
The Bills’ offense was one of the hottest in the NFL through the first three games. Buffalo averaged 38 points per game in three straight wins, and Allen was the talk of the league as the frontrunner for MVP. The past two games have changed the conversation once again. Now, people wonder if the Bills’ offense is broken after two disappointing losses in which they scored 30 points combined.
Knox said the Bills aren’t panicking. Instead, Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady dropped some perspective on Buffalo’s offense in team meetings as they prepared for a critical AFC East showdown with rival New York Jets on Monday night.
“If we started 0-2 and then won three straight, we’d be sitting with the same record but feeling a lot different,” Knox said. “We’re not gonna overreact. We’re leading the division. … We talked about the definition of insanity is when you continue doing the same thing and expecting different results. So there are gonna be some minor tweaks but no one’s overreacting. We’re not in crisis mode or anything like that.”
One difference for the Bills offense this week against the Jets could be finally featuring Knox. When the Bills drafted tight end Dalton Kincaid in 2023, the idea was to deploy two tight end sets and use 12 personnel (one running back and two tight ends) to attack defenses. But Brady has been hesitant to fully embrace this personnel grouping.
Fourteen NFL offenses utilize 12 personnel at a higher percentage than the Bills, who have run out 12 on just 20.6% of offensive plays in 2024, according to Sumersports.com.
Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice said this week on his “Football 301″ podcast that the Bills’ best personnel package on tape is 12. The Bills ran 32 plays out of 11 personnel (one running back and one tight end) last week against the Houston Texans and averaged 3.4 yards per play. On the nine plays, Buffalo ran 12 personnel, and its offense averaged 10 yards per play with a 56% play success rate.
“I know there’s a lot of variables that go into this and it’s not just run more tight ends, but it’s pretty obvious that when Khalil Shakir is out, you need to keep the tight ends on the field,” Tice said.
Shakir missed last week’s game with an ankle injury and is considered questionable to play on Monday.
Brady said this week that he needs to do a better job of getting the Bills to move the ball on drives.
“A guy like Dawson Knox helps us. And so whether it’s 12 personnel, whether it’s 11, whoever it is, we got to do what we got to do to be able to stay on the field, stay in manageable first and second downs and not be in these long third downs,” Brady said. “I think that’s been a big difference these past two weeks. And so something that 12 personnel, obviously something that we’re going to look into and figure out, is that something that gives us the best opportunity of success?”
Knox isn’t complaining about his lack of targets or how uninvolved he’s been in the passing game. He went out of his way this week to applaud everybody on offense for embracing a team-first mindset that precludes everybody from worrying about stats.
Does Knox want to be more involved in the passing game?
“Selfishly, everyone would want a bunch of targets in a game,” he admitted. “But I think this team is so good because we have guys that truly care about the team more than they care about themselves. But as everyone knows, the season changes. As games go by, as weeks go by, we make adjustments. We start doing different stuff with the offense so we got supreme trust in Joe, our playcallers, and Josh.”
The Bills face a difficult philosophical challenge as they set out to find more success on offense. Since Kincaid arrived in 2023 – the only first-round offensive weapon the Bills have – Knox has only one game with 30 or more receiving yards in a game.
Bills coach Sean McDermott was asked whether it’s on Brady to find a way to get Knox going. He placed the responsibility on himself and said the Bills have to do a better job there.
“What we have to do is continue to blend the personnel that we have and put them in positions,” McDermott said. “And I have extreme confidence that Joe is going to continue to do that. And where we haven’t to this point, he will adjust. We will adjust.”
McDermott said that teams can lose their way once in a while during an NFL season. The critical piece is finding their way back to success and making important adjustments.
“How can we move forward in new ways,” McDermott said. “It’s a constant, consistent approach. But also trying to grow every week through the year so that you can become the team that you’re trying to become as the season continues to unfold.”