Gable Steveson Preseason Game One Update

After winning a gold medal at the 2020 Olympic Games, Gable Steveson famously left collegiate eligibility on the table in order to launch a professional wrestling career in the scripted world of the WWE. However, the experiment came to an end this past May when the WWE released him from his contract. The timing could not have been worse as the release came less than 15 days after the U.S. Olympic Trials, which prevented Steveson from making another run at gold.

Shortly after his release, Steveson started alluding to a potential career in professional football on his social media, and on May 31 he signed a contract with the Buffalo Bills despite never previously playing football. This past Saturday he made his professional debut in the Bills’ 33-6 loss to the Chicago Bears.

Per Pro Football Focus (PFF), the former Minnesota wrestler played nine snaps on defense and also saw the field for an additional five snaps on special teams. Following the game, Steveson spoke with SI.com about his first taste of football action.

“My first football game ever, definitely a great time,” Steveson told reporters after the game. “Definitely cool to see all the Buffalo Bills fans come out, not the way we want it to end, but it’s preseason and we’re here to grow and we’re here to get better."

Steveson also spoke with the Bills’ website about his performance.

"Just learning, learning how to play in front of big crowds," he said. "Learning how to see different formations. Chicago brought a new thing that I wasn't used to, so just go out there and then stick to what I know best and that's technique and gap integrity and just fundamentals at the best, so I feel like I did a good job of that. But like you said, there's always room to grow, and we're just at the bottom of the barrel right now, we gotta get to the top."

At this point, it still seems like Steveson is still a long shot to make the final Bills 53-man roster. However, the question is, how did this performance improve his chances? It can be difficult to evaluate a player’s performance based only on nine snaps on defense and five snaps of special teams. InterMat is also obviously a wrestling website, and therefore football is decidedly outside of our bailiwick (Author’s note: my fantasy football career is definitive proof of a lack of useful football knowledge). 

InterMat asked Joe Rozell, who is the Director of Scouting for TEST and a scout for the East-West Shrine Bowl postseason college football all-star game to evaluate Steveson’s performance against the Bears.

“Balanced and noticeable trunk/core strength and extremely active hands,” Rozell said. “Sudden mover and can wash through traffic well. Very limited in length but stout. Peeks in the backfield a lot. Will struggle against heavy duo/power gap. Best used as a primarily one gap mover and pass rush/late down piece. Background in wrestling shows in his balance upon contact and violent hip redirection that ties with his hands without being segmented in movement. Promising as a developmental player but I wonder if the limited size will cap his development.”

PFF was much less positive in their evaluation. The site uses a 0-to-100 scale to evaluate player performance. In their system, Steveson earned a 33.5 overall game score, which was the second lowest on the Bills. He did score much better evaluating his pass-rushing ability, where he earned a 67 score.

Steveson’s next chance to make an impression comes Saturday night as the Bills head to Pittsburgh for a game against the Steelers. The game will air live on NFL Network at 7:00 PM EST. 

For more information on Rozell and TEST visit testsportsclub.com. He is also on Twitter (X) at @CoachJoeRozell.