Dawson Knox just doesn’t want to be a Tight End on the Buffalo Bills.
Knox wants to be the next George Kittle, Travis Kelce, or Greg Olsen. Insert any well-known TE in that sentence and that’s the company the Bills best-performing tight end himself wants to be included in. For Knox, this is exactly the way to win over Bills fans after a struggling rookie campaign that saw him drop 10 targets.
Those numbers improved in 2020, dropping from 10 to 4. However, there still is a long way to go for Knox to cement his status as a permanent resident as the Buffalo Bills TE1. While Stefon Diggs and Cole Beasley will get their fair share of targets (Emmanuel Sanders will too), there’s got to be a bigger threat from this position for Buffalo.
I’m not saying every player has to be at an Antonio Gates-like level. But 288 yards and 3 touchdowns last season are not going to cut it.
Is Dawson Knox feeling the pressure of a potential Zach Ertz move?
With how much speculation that the entire league has done about the fed-up Philadelphia Eagles star, it is a question that’s worth thinking about. Ertz has been a topic of discussion everywhere, but arguably his biggest impact would be here in Buffalo.
To have a legitimate receiving threat can help take a linebacker out of the box on any run play, and can also be a nice safety blanket over the middle. There’s also the fact that 3 out of the top 5 players in red-zone targets were tight ends.
All three of those teams made the playoffs and Ertz’s 2019 season saw a 4/5 run on red-zone targets, with those 4 receptions all being touchdowns. If the Bills did actually orchestrate a trade for Ertz, it would immediately put Knox on the bench.
The Bills still have some cap space available, and maybe with another move or two could actually have the entire thing covered. We’ll see if it happens.