ORCHARD PARK – DeWayne Carter called his shot following the Buffalo Bills’ OTA practice Tuesday afternoon.
The third-year defensive tackle and many of his teammates will be at Rochester’s ESL Ballpark Sunday to participate in Greg Rousseau’s charity softball game to benefit the Rousseau Family Foundation which is dedicated to empowering children from low-income communities through mentorship and resources that support education and career readiness.
Before the Bills offense squares off against the defense, there will be a home run derby and Carter essentially said no one else should bother taking part.
“I don’t know if you know,” Carter said with a smile, “but I’m the defending home run derby champ. You know that’s my claim to fame.”
Last year, the lefty-swinging defensive lineman won the derby in Micah Hyde’s charity event held at Sahlen’s Field in Buffalo, so even though Rousseau has taken over the hosting and moved it to Rochester, Carter says it’s only right that he be acknowledged as the defending champ.
“I’ll be defending it this Sunday,” he said. “It’s just for a great cause for the community. I think it’s so cool because going out there, you kind of get a view of Buffalo, Rochester, like what the fans actually look like, what it means that they show up to support good causes, all the guys’ foundations and all the good things that we do as a team. So I think this is awesome to be a part of.”
Carter deserves to have a little fun given the past 10 months he’s had to endure after he tore his Achilles late in training camp and missed the entire 2025 season. The road back has been arduous, but he’s participating fully in the Bills’ OTA sessions and trying to win a roster spot on a crowded defensive line while learning Jim Leonhard’s new odd-man front scheme.
When he was picked in the third round of the 2024 draft, Carter weighed around 300 pounds, but he bulked up during his rehab and the extra weight and muscle should serve him well because the Bills need some size in the middle of the line.
“Obviously, surgery, you gain a little bit of weight, but then I got in the weight room so that’s honestly where it came from,” he said. “I gained about 17 pounds of muscle from that point until now. Majority of it is muscle just from me lifting weights because all I could do was lift, eat and do certain types of cardio. I’m hoping to play around probably 315, 320, 325, just depending on where my body feels best at it.”
It doesn’t seem like the Bills will have a lineman directly over the center the way a traditional nose tackle would line up. That player – Carter, Deone Walker and Zion Logue seem to be the leading candidates – will be offset between the center and guard, flanked by the ends such as Ed Oliver, TJ Sanders, Landon Jackson and Zane Durant. Adding weight should help Carter in the middle.
“That’s definitely a role that he can fill for us,” Leonhard said. “Part of that was just his year in the weight room, right, when he got injured, not being able to run and move. He got really strong but he kept his mobility. Excited about where he’s at. He put in a ton of work, he feels very confident with his strength and where his body’s at right now.”
Carter was part of the DT rotation in his rookie year and was just starting to gain some traction before a wrist injury forced him to miss six games and when he returned, he never recaptured his groove and he was a healthy scratch for all three playoff games.
He was excited for 2025, especially knowing veteran Larry Ogunjobi was unavailable the first six games because of a suspension, and he was trending upward before he went down in a heap one day at practice.
“It was hard, man,” he said. “It’s always like you have a sulking period (after a major injury) and that can vary. Fortunately mine was only about two or three days and I was like I can’t keep feeling sorry for myself. What am I going to do about it? And, fortunately, I turned the pain and all the frustration into the weight room and did everything I could do. And this is what I came to be.”
Now that he’s back, he has a new set of challenges to face as he’s playing in a new scheme under defensive coaches who were not here when he was drafted, and he knows he’ll need to prove himself if he hopes to win a roster spot.
“Like I always say, I can play anywhere from zero to five,” he said of his versatility, something the Bills always covet no matter who is coaching.
Carter hopes to light it up downtown Sunday with his smooth softball swing, but the next time he comes to Rochester in late July for training camp at St. John Fisher University is when he’ll really need to shine.
“I’m just excited to play ball again,” Carter said. “It just turns into this child-like happiness to be back on the field again. Being injured is very humbling in the sense that it can just be taken away from you like that. I got hurt doing something I do every single day. I’ve probably done it a million times in my life, so for me to have the opportunity to get back out there, I’m just blessed.”
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 37 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist 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 maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills DT eyes home run derby title and comeback season
Reporting by Sal Maiorana, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Sal Maiorana, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | USA TODAY Network
