AJ Epenesa loves how the Bills defense looks in camp
The Bills’ defense has had a great start to training camp according to veteran edge rusher AJ Epenesa.
AJ Epenesa was just returning to the dorm where the Buffalo Bills stay during training camp at St. John Fisher University Tuesday night, and there he was, on the television, holding an 11-foot snake.
Epenesa had a starring role in the first episode of Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Buffalo Bills because during the players’ time off between minicamp and training camp, he went down to the Florida Everglades to catch snakes.
Yes, catch snakes.
“It’s funny, I stumbled into the lobby area last night as everyone was kind of watching it, and as soon as I walked in, that part aired,” Epenesa said Wednesday following the second-to-last practice in Pittsford. “It was cool to kind of just see it as I came in, and then, you know, it’s kind of weird seeing yourself on TV, but it was really cool to see that.”
Epenesa is on TV a lot during Bills’ games because he’s one of the key players on Buffalo’s defense, but this was an entirely different activity he was playing, one that he has only just taken up.
The Hard Knocks viewers, as well as most of his teammates, probably thought he was a little nuts, but actually, he said it was pretty safe.
“I just told myself they’re not venomous, they can’t kill me with just biting me,” he said. “I was nervous going into it, but we got the first snake and there’s like six of us in our group and so once the dog would find it, we would surround it and kind of come up with a plan of attack.
“Someone would have it by the tail and then you would blind it with your head beam. It sounds pretty crazy but honestly the snake didn’t really move that much when you’re reaching for them. The toughest part is when you grab it you just got to hang on.”
Naturally, Epenesa’s phone started blowing up once that segment of the show was shown. “I got a couple ‘hell no’s’ and ‘never in my life’. I offered it out to a few of the guys, like, ‘You guys should join us next year, you should come along, we’re going for iguanas’ and I don’t think they want any part of it.”
Epenesa was one of several players featured.
Dion Dawkins was shown enjoying one of his hobbies called drifting, where you get into souped-up cars at a special track, and then drive around in circles purposely oversteering as if you were on ice to create the type of effect you see during car chases in movies. “It’s a thrill,” Dawkins said. “Almost every single day, I’ll be out there spinning tires.”
Tre’Davious White had the spotlight on him, too, detailing his road back to Buffalo after injuries nearly derailed his career, and the NFL Films cameras followed him to the Pittsford Dairy where he handed out special Tre Day Sundaes to patrons.
And of course, Josh Allen was a big part of the show, though most of his participation came in sit down interviews or his performance and interactions with teammates on the field.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, he has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at [email protected], and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.