Two days ago, Dawson Knox mentioned wanting to stay in Buffalo for a long time. On Wednesday, he agreed to a four-year extension with the Bills.
Source: #Bills TE Dawson Knox gets a four-year, $53.6 million extension with over $31 million guaranteed.
“I love the people in Buffalo, hopefully I’ll be here a long time,” Knox said this week, noting fan support after his brother’s passing. This ensures he’ll remain a while.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) September 7, 2022
The four-year $53.6 contract comes out to $13.4 million per year, which makes Knox the sixth highest-paid tight end in the league. David Njoku of the Cleveland Browns is currently the fifth-highest paid tight end and is making $13.6 million a year.
While Knox is often overlooked in terms of Bills’ impact players, he is a crucial member of the offense. In 2021, Knox ran the 6th-most routes of any tight end in football. He finished third on the Bills last season with 80 targets, 4.7 per game, trailing only Stefon Diggs and Cole Beasley.
He turned those targets into 56 catches for 685 yards and 11 touchdowns. Despite those 80 targets ranking 19th among all tight ends, he was 11th in receiving yards amongst tight ends and 2nd in touchdowns, trailing only Travis Kelce.
However, he also stayed in to block on 11.8% of his overall snaps. That’s more than double the rate of other top receiving tight ends like Mark Andrews (5.9%), Kyle Pitts (5%), Darren Waller (6.9%), and T.J. Hockenson (8.9%).
It’s quite the achievement for Knox, who caught zero touchdowns in college while at Mississippi. In fact, he had just 605 yards receiving combined in two years before the Bills drafted the 6’4″ 250-pound tight end in the third round.
The contract extension also comes amidst a difficult offseason for the veteran and his family. Earlier this summer, Knox’s younger brother, Luke, died suddenly on August 18th. Luke had been playing football at Ole Miss, like this brother, primarily playing special teams before switching to tight end in 2021 and then transferring to Florida International University (FIU) this offseason.
“I know he’s going to be watching, somehow some way,” Knox said to reporters a week ago. “It’s really mind-blowing, just the size, the amount of support I’ve had. The sheer number of texts and messages, even just the dollar amount of donations that have been made in my brother’s name to the P.U.N.T. Foundation [a philanthropic organization Knox supports]. It’s more than I could have expected, but at the same time it’s weirdly not surprising because this is such an incredible city with such an incredible fanbase and people.”
Now Knox will get to be a member of that incredible city and its dedicated fanbase for a long time.
