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New depth QB had to miss a tee time to sign with Bills

New Buffalo Bills quarterback Ben DiNucci had to sacrifice a golf session in order to make his workout.

Kyle Silagyi

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
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Life is but a string of small sacrifices.

Look at new Buffalo Bills quarterback Ben DiNucci, for example, who now has the opportunity to extend his lifelong goal of playing professional football as he’s again part of an NFL roster. In order to get to One Bills Drive to work out and ink his deal, however, he had to make a difficult sacrifice—his tee time.

Buffalo was forced to act fast with regard to the quarterback position after third-string signal-caller Shane Buechele suffered a neck injury in the team’s Saturday preseason opener; the ailment is set to keep the passer out for an “extended period of time,” and thus, the Bills’ brass felt it necessary to act swiftly and add another quarterback who can soak up reps over the next two preseason contests.

The team called DiNucci, a former Dallas Cowboys folk hero who has passed for 219 yards in three career appearances, on Sunday morning, asking him to fly from Denver to Buffalo to work out. The 27-year-old obliged at the expense of his planned golf session.

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“I woke up Sunday morning, had a tee time that I was supposed to get to in the afternoon,” DiNucci told WKBW’s Matthew Bové. “Didn’t happen. Buffalo called, and I’m on a 7:00 o’clock flight. Landed at midnight on Sunday night, worked out [Monday], signed, and then right into meetings. 

“It’s been a kind of whirlwind past 48 hours, but in terms of just being out here, seeing—because it’s one thing, right, to see the plays on paper, it’s another thing to see guys break the huddle, line up in different spots, and just see the flow of practice. Luckily for me, there’s some carryover between [offensive coordinator] Joe [Brady’s] offense and what Sean Payton ran last year in Denver, so a lot of the terms are stuff that I’m familiar with. It’s been good to not have to necessarily start from ground zero.”

DiNucci, who spent the 2023 NFL season on the Denver Broncos practice squad, mentions that he has familiarity with offensive schemes similar to that of Buffalo offensive coordinator Joe Brady thanks to his time with Denver sideline boss Sean Payton; Brady is a member of Payton’s coaching tree, serving as an offensive assistant with the New Orleans Saints from 2017–2018. He doesn’t expect to master the Bills’ playbook before the team’s preseason Week 2 clash with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he feels as though his base understanding will allow him to helm Buffalo’s offense for large stretches of this weekend’s game.

“At the end of the day, football is still football,” DiNucci said. “I’ve been throwing a football for the last 15 years, so that part, I’ve been staying in shape and doing all of the stuff that I need to do in Denver the last few months to make sure that, if this happened, I wouldn’t have to shake the cobwebs off. But there’s a big hurdle mentally, right? It’s Tuesday, I don’t practice, we’re traveling to Pittsburgh tomorrow—I know how the joint practices work, it’s probably going to be the ones and twos. There’s a chance I might not have a live rep until Saturday night at some point. 

Ben DiNucci
Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

“Biggest thing for me is just making sure formations, base stuff, I’m good with. I’m sure Friday night or at some point, I’ll sit down with Joe and the guys and just say, ‘Hey, here’s what I’m comfortable with, here’s what I’m not comfortable with, and let’s go have some fun.’”

Buffalo has not rostered three quarterbacks in recent years, and thus, it’s difficult to imagine DiNucci carving out a spot on the Bills’ initial 53-man unit. His signing can more accurately credited to Buffalo wanting to prevent starter Josh Allen or backup Mitchell Trubisky from taking unnecessary hits throughout the remainder of the preseason; with Buechele now on injured reserve, however, DiNucci could secure a spot on the practice squad should he impress over the next two weeks.

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Kyle Silagyi
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