Tom Rock: LI's Dan Villari sees Rams as 'someplace I was wanted,' wants to prove NFL wrong for letting him go undrafted

Dan Villari’s versatility helped make him an NFL player. His background as a quarterback before switching positions to tight end in college gives him the rare ability to catch, run with, or even throw the football on any given play. It’s what attracted teams to him and led to his landing with the Rams as a free agent this weekend.

But now the Massapequa product and former Thorp Award winner as the most outstanding player in Nassau County when he played at Plainedge High School has added even more elements to his toolbox of attributes.

Anger. Frustration. Defiance. These are his new triple-threat assets.

Villari will bring those with him to Los Angeles next week when he reports for rookie minicamp with his new team, and they stem from being snubbed through seven rounds of an NFL Draft in which he felt he deserved to hear his name announced … but never did. He had to sit in front of the family TV for hours and wait until after the 257th and final selection was made on Saturday evening before sorting through a flurry of phone calls from multiple teams all conveying how much they wanted him — even though they had already passed him by several times over during the previous three days.

“I’m still a little upset about it,” he told Newsday on Monday. “My dream was to get drafted. I definitely know I am better than a lot of the guys who were. But it doesn’t really matter. I guess I just have to show them again why they are wrong.”

Villari may have agreed to the terms of a contract, but he certainly does not agree to the terms that led to his status as an undrafted player. That means a decidedly more uphill battle to make the roster and stick in the league. It’s a difficult position for him to be in, especially since the Rams also selected tight end Max Clare from Ohio State in the second round. Villari will show up to rookie minicamp already on the back end of the depth chart at his position.

“I’m just going to go in and compete,” he said. “I’m not afraid of competing. I’m actually excited to show them who they didn’t draft.”

This isn’t the first time Villari has had to overcome doubters. His star turn at Plainedge resulted in a Long Island championship and led to his attending Michigan, but playing time there never really materialized. After two seasons he transferred to Syracuse. Then he was told he should give up quarterbacking and switch to tight end. It was a difficult adjustment in terms of technique but also a humbling one in terms of his ambitions. Villari worked through both of those, though, and became one of the top players in the country at his new position. He played in both the Hula Bowl and Senior Bowl earlier this year, two all-star showcases for NFL teams.

He made several in-person visits to team facilities and remained in contact with coaching staffs around the league throughout the spring. It was why he felt so confident going into this weekend.

“I guess I just learned that whatever you hear about the draft, you just don’t know,” Villari said. “A lot of it is not true. A lot of people told me I was going to get drafted. I honestly have no clue why I wasn’t.”

He probably never will. But now he’ll at least get to use that. He’ll try to turn confusion and disappointment into something that drives him rather than debilitates him, not just for this very start of his pro career but for however long it lasts.

“I’ll always carry it,” he said. “I’ll always have it in the back of my head.”

The one good part about not getting drafted is that it gave Villari some power over where he is going. A player who is drafted has no say, but a free agent can weigh options. That’s exactly what Villari, his family, and his agent did on Saturday night.

Ultimately, besides the Rams, it came down to opportunities with Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, Atlanta and Kansas City. Things got so frenzied that at one point he was told by a team he had five minutes to decide or their offer would be rescinded.

Eventually it wound up being the Rams.

“It was the best situation for me to compete because they love tight ends, they play with 13 personnel [three tight ends on the field], and they offered the best contract and seemed the most excited about me,” Villari said. “They just kept telling me that they loved my film and they loved my skillset and they have a vision for me. They kept telling me that coach [Sean] McVay loves his tight ends and he wants seven or eight of them on the roster. He is trying to load that tight end room up.

“I just wanted to go someplace where I was wanted.”

His three-year deal is for $3.145 million, but he has to make the team — and then stay on it — to earn that. The numbers that matter most for an undrafted free agent are the signing bonus and guarantee. Villari got $45,000 in each of those categories.

After he agreed to the deal several other teams were still trying to reach out to him to see if he was available, including the Jaguars, Ravens and Jets. But Villari was already locked in. Still, it added to his confusion and distaste for the entire process.

“All these teams are calling me,” he sighed. “Why didn’t they just draft me?”

It’s certainly been a strange, eye-opening few days for Villari. It was a long journey to get to the NFL, one measured not just in years but interminable rounds this weekend.

“It was a tough day for me,” he said of Saturday. “Very weird.”

Villari was already back at work here on Long Island on Monday morning. He’ll continue training at T3 Performance in West Hempstead as he has for most of this offseason. And he’ll keep having those route-running sessions at local parks that he’s been doing a few times a week with Jack Coan, the former Sayville record-setting quarterback who currently plays for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the CFL and went through a similar trajectory as an undrafted player.

Then next week Villari will leave Long Island behind and head out to Los Angeles.

Not as a draft pick, but as someone intent on proving he was overlooked and undervalued.

“I’ve done that before,” he said. “Just gotta do it again.”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.