Bills GM praises traits of Olympic gold medalist signee: He 'was worth a shot'

Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane recently spoke about Gable Steveson, an Olympic gold medalist wrestler who is attempting to transition to football.

Minnesota's Gable Steveson has his hand raised after scoring a major decision at 285 pounds during the second session of the Big Ten Wrestling Championships, Saturday, March 5, 2022, at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska. 220305 Big Ten Semi Wr 071 Jpg / Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen /

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:

“Probably not smart to draft too many players that you’ve never seen play football.”

The executive seemingly hasn’t learned his lesson.

Beane dipped back into 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 otherworldly athleticism and strength are well documented; he finished his four-year stint 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 in his final three seasons.

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He’s just never played football at any level, something that’s generally a prerequisite when signing with a professional football team. 

In fact, he had never laced up a pair of cleats before visiting One Bills Drive on a free agent visit in mid-May. His traits are objective, but asking a person in their mid-20s to transition to an entirely new sport—regardless of their intangibles—is a task that seems insurmountable; several teams have tried it with athletes from various sports, and it’s not an experiment that frequently breeds success.

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

The veteran decision-maker spoke about Steveson during a recent appearance on The Jim Rome Show, talking about the athlete’s traits while mentioning his team’s soft spot for former wrestlers.

“We worked him out a few weeks back,” Beane said. “Talked about it. We thought he was a little bit light at the time, but being a wrestler, those guys know how to gain and lose [weight] probably better than anyone, so he wanted to keep working out. I think he worked out for one or two more teams, I know one, at least. He definitely had some interest at various positions, I think one team maybe even looked at him as a fullback. We called him back last week, flew him over.

“There’s plenty of wrestlers that were also football players that we interview, a lot of them play O-line [or] D-line. Maybe they’ve got shorter arms or things like that, but they just understand the leverage game and the grit and toughs. It’s truly man whipping man inside when you’re playing offensive or defensive line. We just felt like a guy, an Olympic athlete like this was worth a shot. His people reached out and let us know he was interested. We thought we’d give him a shot.”

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Buffalo has employed several former amateur wrestlers throughout Beane’s tenure due to the presence of head coach Sean McDermott, a back-to-back national prep wrestling champion in high school who has long been outspoken about his passion for the sport. The sideline boss feels as though the traits and mindsets that wrestlers operate with translate well to the gridiron, hence why the team has long had a penchant for signing or drafting players with experience in the sport.

And there is something to the theory; the athleticism and strength of amateur wrestlers would certainly translate, as would their understanding of leverage and ability to generate force from their lower bodies. It’s a skillset particularly applicable to the offensive and defensive lines; the 6-foot-1, 265-pound Steveson figures to play defensive tackle for the Bills.

It seems like a tailor-made situation for Steveson to succeed; that said, he’s still an extreme long shot to make the roster. He’ll likely spend his first season as a professional football player—and football player, in general—on Buffalo’s practice squad.