It’s Shnow Season!

On November 14, 2025, Mayor Christopher P. Scanlon awarded Buffalo Bills’ offensive lineman Dion Dawkins with a Key to the City of Buffalo, an honor bestowed on fewer than 10 people, including President John F. Kennedy. And it’s one that comes with a list of important questions. “So, what does the key open? Does it open city hall at night? What does it open?” Dawkins said, laughing, downplaying the honor. “I wonder if it opens Chick-fil-A on Sunday.”

He’s a grandmaster on the field, a scorcher behind the wheel, and grinds like a boss to support his community. The five-time Pro Bowler also brings joy, humor, and humility to the conversation. “I’m an offensive lineman and I get treated like a quarterback, right? And I’m blessed and honored that that is my life,” he said.

At press time, the 2026 NFL regular season just kicked off. Having finished an enormously successful 2025 season, fans can expect the Bills to crank up the power, and Dawkins already predicted on his @jerzeystar Instagram: “Shnowwwyyy Season on the Forcast.”

“This past season, it was that bittersweet taste, right? We get all the way (until) we have two games left to be in the Super Bowl, and then things happen that are out of our control,” Dawkins lamented. “I would rather lose because they just outscored us, or lose because they made a tackle, or lose because of some stuff like that, right? But we get knocked out (by) stuff that we can’t control. ‘Did he catch it or did he not catch it?’”

Ask any fan, and they’ll know that answer. Nevertheless, the Bills are itching for their shot at the Super Bowl title, and there isn’t a lot of real estate for Dawkins to carry out his seasonal custom. “When we hit a high in the season, I’ll get a tattoo, and then we’ll win, right?” he explained. “And then when we win, I get another one. And if we win, I get another one. If we win, I get another one. Then if we lose, then I stop.”

Making the 0.001%

When Inked first caught up with Dawkins, the Super Bowl was a week in the rearview, and he made it clear that he was “absolutely not” practicing football. “We just started the off-season,” he explained. “Like, right now I’m on all bad food — McDonald’s and anything that I can get my hands on. I’m enjoying it because then when it’s over, it’s over.”

It was a short reprieve before organized team activities commenced in April, edging toward a full-fledged training camp where diet and drills are paramount. It’s a rigorous routine of boxing, walking, high-contact drills, and conditioning that Dawkins knows is a privilege given to just a bite-sized portion of young, aspiring footballers.

In September, Dawkins entered his tenth season with the same team that drafted him in 2017, a feat in and of itself. “The percentage of people that make it to the NFL is slim. And then a percentage of people that get their second contract is slim. And then a percentage of people that get the third deal is even slimmer than that. And then you got the fourth deal,” he explained, pointing to the “0.001%” tattoo on his left hand. “That’s why I have this tattoo here.”

In an organization where roster turnovers are relentless, Dawkins’ staying power has everything to do with his ability to protect Josh Allen — arguably the best quarterback in the NFL — playing in five consecutive AFC East title games, and his natural tendency to be an upright human being.

His contributions off the field and excellence on the field earned him his fourth consecutive Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Club Winner Award in 2025. “To get an award for being a good person, I think that that is probably one of my biggest honors, and it’s a beautiful feeling, a good feeling, a happy feeling, you know.”

The Illustrated Shnowman

In April, Dawkins revealed a completed, full black-and-gray backpiece with realistic renditions of his children, his fiancée Daiyaana Muhammad, his drifting car, the “Rahway,” a suited-up Dawkins, and the quote “Success doesn’t care what road you take to get there.”

This road to his massive collection of ink was set in motion when he was 17, when he came home inked with a “Tupac Cross.” “It was me, one, being allowed to get a tattoo, and me if I came home with something, what will it be that I won’t get in too much trouble, right?” he explained, adding, “Once I left the house, I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s over with now. It’s over with. I’m going crazy.’ I was like, ‘All right, I got to make sure that I’m kitted up the right way. I got to make sure that I got the sleeves and the whole thing.’”

At 32, Dawkins’ collection has expanded across the entirety of his body, from a daddy duck and his ducklings — representations of Dawkins and his kids — to his nickname “Shnow,” inked like a billboard across his chest, a grinning snowman next to a street sign bearing the cross streets of his childhood home below it.

“I want everybody to see (Shnow) when they look at me without my shirt off first, so they know Shnow. They wonder, ‘What is Shnow?’ And then once they Google or if they see what Shnow is, then they can go into all the trickles of everything, and then you can see the connection.”

Dawkins was in the spotlight in Monster Energy’s “SELF MADE” YouTube series, where the energy drink company’s tattoo ambassador Luke Wessman gained an exclusive perspective of Dawkins’ life off the field and was anointed the opportunity to tattoo the Shnowman.

The completed tattoo, a regal eagle with fierce, flowing wings and imposing talons grasping a shield emblazoned with the letter “D,” rests on the Jersey native’s left knee, blending into Dawkins’ surrounding ink. The eagle represents his upbringing and is a tribute to his father, who worked for decades at Anheuser-Busch in New Jersey, where the company’s eagle logo spun continuously atop the brewery.

“The eagle stands for strength, vision and pride — all tying back to where he came from,” Wessman said in “SELF MADE.” “That’s what I love about tattoos like this. They carry meaning, but they still have to move right, sit right, and look right. It’s story and style, just like the man wearing it.”

“This eagle, I look at it, I tap my knee every day,” Dawkins explained, adding, “The pain scale, man, I would say this one was like a seven and a half on a 10 scale.”

Once Dawkins’ tattoo was complete, they traded places. Wessman entrusted the footballer with his tattoo machine, ready to get some new ink of his own. “I was geeked up when I could tattoo (him). I was like, ‘Man, what? I get the tattoo (machine)?’” he said. What he inked on Wessman shouldn’t come as a surprise. “Yeah, I put that 73 on him.”

Controlled Chaos

Dawkins has become a pro in another domain: escaping the stress and anxiety that comes with being an NFL player. “I am huge on leading by example, and I speak, ‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams,’ and that is something that I live by,” Dawkins shared. So, mentally, “you have to know when to plug in and when to unplug. You can’t be all on all of the time.”

He continued, “When you could figure out how to detach from something, it is a cheat code. It is a super booster. You can supercharge your brain; you can supercharge your energy; you can supercharge yourself. But what I do is I drive my drift cars.”

Dawkins discovered drifting about three years ago. During the filming of his “SELF MADE” episode, Dawkins told Wessman he “was hooked off of the smell first. Once I smelled the burning tires, the burning rubber, I said, ‘Oh yeah, this is where I want to be.’” Just two days later, his friend Tony Cala and Eric White from Big Indian Drift Pit found Dawkins a car that could fit his 6-foot-5 frame. “It’s just incredible because it’s hard to find a ready-to-go drift car that fits you and it’s just perfect for you,” he shared with Inked.

Drifting began as a distraction from the ball game, but it has turned into a calling of sorts. During the NFL off-season, Dawkins did his time at a Prison Break event, throttling and clutch kicking at the Hendry County Correctional Facility, an abandoned prison in Immokalee, Florida.

“Prison Break is motor chaos, in a good way,” he explained. “As the drifters, the connection in the world is almost like having a football player at a UFC event, right? And the good thing about that analogy is we all have wheels instead of boxing gloves and cleats. So, with the wheels, we could all do our own thing with wheels, and it combines that love of motors.”

On September 5, his Car Shnow kicked off its third year at Buffalo, New York’s Highmark Stadium. Drift car enthusiasts, celebrities, and special guests were on site, watching live drifting, enjoying games, prizes, and giveaways, and viewing an impressive selection of tricked-out vehicles.

“It keeps my soul fresh. I’m happy. I am free when I’m spinning tires and tandeming and acting crazy,” he said of drifting.

When he isn’t drifting, playing video games, film editing, or vaulting greased watermelons, he taps into his music addiction: cueing soundtracks and setting the pulse. “I play with my DJ equipment in the basement, and I put a show on for about 100 empty faces. Nobody there but me. And I have a good time.”

But when it’s time to plug back into the game, those empty faces take the shape of dozens of driven footballers with DJ Dawkins energizing his teammates in the NFL locker room, blasting their favorite basslines, from hip hop to soul to pop rock. “It’s super fun, because you get to control the vibe. I call it the vibe creator. I’m the vibe creator. VC,” he told ESPN’s Marc Raimondi in 2025.

Dreaming Big

Just two years into his NFL career, his brother was arrested, and Dawkins assumed responsibility for his children. “I wanted to. I’m like, ‘Give me my nephews. I got you,’” he shared. “But having to do that by default made me realize that there’s so many people in the world that have to do this by default, and they might not have the financial stability like I do to be able to do it at the level that I can do it comfortably while still pushing my career.”

So, in 2020, Dawkins started the Dion’s Dreamers foundation, with a mission to help the underserved and those experiencing mental, financial, or physical hardships. “It was like a flood of things, and then that just drove Dion’s Dreamers to its creation. It just keeps evolving every year and then we jump in so many different categories,” Dawkins explained.

Dion’s Dreamers helps the community with needs like food, hygiene products, cleaning supplies, and baby supplies, and it also makes dreams come true, helping others learn new skills, like playing a musical instrument or professional skills training.

“Some people hit brick walls, and they don’t have anywhere to go,” he explained. “I just enjoy being part of that ramming truck, to run right through the wall for them and help them. That’s kind of what Dion’s Dreamers is in a in a nutshell, and it just goes and it keeps going. Every day it’s something and we’re here to help.”

Shnow in the Forecast

“What stayed with me wasn’t the activity, it was the attitude. Here’s someone carrying an enormous amount of responsibility, who deeply respects people’s time, but still holds onto this childlike enthusiasm for life,” Wessman shared of his experience filming with Dawkins for “SELF MADE.” “That balance discipline without losing joy is incredibly inspiring, and it’s exactly the kind of human moment ‘SELF MADE’ exists to capture.”

Aside from his brute strength and abilities on the field, his attitude and authenticity keep fans wanting more. Dawkins stays present in the community and doesn’t shy away from fans. In fact, he’s keeping an eye out. “Because I’m a lineman, I see every 73 out there,” he shared on “SELF MADE.” “If you have a 73 jersey on and I’m driving past you, I will pull over and say what’s up.”

While a decade goes well beyond what statistics would tell you about an offensive lineman’s NFL career, Dawkins is maintaining his momentum, pursuing that Super Bowl ring. He admitted he wasn’t consistent with his tattoo ritual in 2025, so perhaps he finds that consistency this year, and winning ink will be a good luck charm for a Bills championship season.