It was “worth it”

Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane cracked a joke shortly after selecting English rugby player Travis Clayton, an athletic anomaly with no prior American football experience, in the seventh round of the 2024 NFL Draft:

“It’s probably not smart to sign too many players you’ve never seen play football.”

The executive apparently has not learned its lesson.

Beane returned to the proverbial athletic well last week, signing Olympic gold medalist wrestler Gable Steveson to a standard three-year rookie contract. The 24-year-old’s supernatural athleticism and strength are well-documented; he finished his four-year stay at the University of Minnesota as one of the most dominant and decorated collegiate wrestlers of all time, finishing with an 85-2 record and not losing a single match during his last three seasons.

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He simply has never played soccer at any level, which is usually a prerequisite for signing with a professional soccer team.

In fact, he had never laced up a pair of cleats before heading to One Bills Drive during a free agent visit in mid-May. Its characteristics are objective, but asking a twenty-something to move to a completely new sport, regardless of its intangible assets, is a task that seems insurmountable; several teams have tried it with athletes from different sports, and it’s not an experience that often breeds success.

But for Beane, the possibility was simply too important to ignore.

The veteran decision maker spoke about Steveson during a recent appearance on The Jim Rome Showspeaking about the athlete’s traits while also mentioning his team’s weakness for former wrestlers.

“We worked on it a few weeks ago,” Beane said. ” I have talked about that. We thought he was a little lightweight at the time, but being a wrestler, these guys know how to gain and lose weight probably better than anyone, so he wanted to keep training. I think he worked for one or two additional teams, I know of at least one. He definitely had some interest at different positions, I think one team maybe even considered him as a fullback. We called it back last week and skimmed it.

“There are a lot of wrestlers who were also football players that we interview, a lot of them play on the O (or) D-line. Maybe they have shorter arms or things like that, but they just understand leverage play and grit and toughness. He’s truly a man whipping man inside when you’re playing offensive or defensive line. We just felt like a guy, an Olympian like this was worth it. His collaborators contacted us and let us know he was interested. We thought we’d give it a chance.

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Buffalo employed several former amateur wrestlers throughout Beane’s tenure due to the presence of head coach Sean McDermott, a back-to-back national champion in high school prep wrestling who has long spoken openly about his passion for the sport. The sideline boss feels like the traits and mindset the wrestlers operate with translate well onto the field, hence why the team has long had a penchant for signing or recruitment of players with experience in this sport.

And there is something in the theory; the athleticism and strength of amateur wrestlers would certainly translate, as would their understanding of leverage and their ability to generate force from their lower bodies. This is a skill set particularly applicable to the offensive and defensive lines; Steveson, 6-foot-1, 265 pounds, is expected to play defensive tackle for the Bills.

This seems like a situation tailor-made for Steveson to succeed; that said, he is still very far from making the list. He will likely spend his first season as a professional football player – and football player in general – on Buffalo’s practice squad.