Throughout his tenure with the Bills, even after the team declined the fifth-year option, defensive end Shaq Lawson never had a bad thing to say about the team that made him a first-round pick in 2016.
Lawson led Buffalo’s defensive ends with 6.5 sacks last season, a career-high for him. At locker cleanout day following the team’s playoff loss to the Texans, Lawson said he’d “love to be” in Buffalo in 2020. But in a business decision which ended in a three-year, $30 million contract, Lawson ended up with the Miami Dolphins.
As divisional foe of the team that drafted him, Lawson will see him former team plenty of times over the next few seasons. But this upcoming Sunday will be the first of that potential bunch, so it’s a special one.
Still, everyone always wants to stick it to their former team as an athlete, it’s almost ingrained in them. No doubt about it, Lawson wants to win on Sunday. That doesn’t mean there’s any malice in that though… and Lawson and the Bills, namely Josh Allen and Sean McDermott, proved that on Wednesday.
First in Orchard Park, the quarterback and coach, respectively, spoke highly of Lawson, focusing mostly on the person off the field.
“We got our old buddy Shaq down there, he was a really good guy in the locker room last year. We hated to see him go,” Allen said via video conference on Wednesday.
In terms of McDermott, he even essentially said Lawson always made a good impression on him, even dating back to the 2016 pre-draft process when McDermott worked for the Panthers.
“He’s one of my favorites. I actually worked Shaq out when he was in Clemson coming out. We have a bit more history than his time here in Buffalo. I can see why Miami did what they did in terms of going out and getting him,” McDermott said.
While chatting with reporters in Miami as his weekly preparations get underway as well, Lawson mentioned that financially, the offer the Bills made to him as a free agent this offseason was “a little off” from the deal he eventually landed in South Beach. Still, no bad blood. Lawson’s praise for the Bills was mostly involving some former teammates, which included plenty about Allen on the field.
“That guy got better every year. I’ve seen the development. He’s a dog, I said that when I was there. He’s a dog. He looks 10 times better [this year],” Lawson said, even adding that Allen is probably a faster runner than Patriots quarterback Cam Newton.
Lawson will certainly want to get his chance to beat the Bills up this weekend despite all of that. Tre’Davious White’s thoughts on facing his ex-teammate on defense reflected that.
“He’s gonna be talking trash to our offense,” White said. “He’s a guy that made a ton of big time plays for us. I’m happy for him. I’m happy he’s able to do the things he wanted to do and get compensated for his services,” White said.
At minimum, we should expect to see a much happier Lawson after the final whistle… Or at least in comparison to last week when the Dolphins defense got into a dust up with Newton a few days ago. Probably some sort of social distancing gestures at first.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, players aren’t supposed to do the traditional jersey swap following games this year and all post-game interactions are suggested to be limited. Maybe Lawson will seek out some of his ex-Bills teammates when the cameras are off then.
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