Meet Joe DiBenedetto, the agent trying to put Long Island football on the NFL map

Joe DiBenedetto has been a certified NFL agent since 2020. Really, he’s been an agent at heart since he was 4 years old, watched “Jerry Maguire” and decided that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. But of the dozens of players he has represented over the past few years and guided through the draft, including eight ushered into the league this spring, three stand out.

They are the ones whose selections actually made him cry.

The first was last year when Steve Avila was selected in the second round by the Los Angeles Rams. DiBenedetto had promised to try to make him the first interior lineman taken in his class. Avila already was sobbing when he FaceTimed DiBenedetto after they accomplished that goal, and he couldn’t help but join in.

The other two were last week, when clients Matt Goncalves and Dylan Laube were drafted. Goncalves was taken by the Indianapolis Colts in the third round, Laube by the Las Vegas Raiders in the sixth round.

“Actual tears were shed,” DiBenedetto said of those shared moments. “I think it was just a relief.”

Those two weren’t just clients. They weren’t just players. They were part of DiBenedetto’s mission to put Long Island football — and the often uncharted outposts on the East End of Suffolk County in particular — on the NFL’s radar.

“I always say this to people: New York football is constantly disrespected,” said DiBenedetto, who lives in Westhampton. “High school? Underrecruited. College? Overlooked. I want to be the person that helps put New York football on the map.”

Goncalves and Laube were the two Long Islanders actually drafted by NFL teams, but for them, it felt as if there was a trio — three guys, all of whom grew up within about 15 minutes of each other in the Westhampton and Manorville areas — with DiBenedetto helping steer their journey.

“Long Island is very overlooked,” Goncalves said. “We don’t get a lot of NFL draft picks. It’s kind of a Long Island-against-the-world kind of thing. But I think the competition and the athletes coming out of here are getting even better . . . The three of us being able to make a name for ourselves, it means a lot to me.”

Long Island is having a bit of a football reawakening. In recent years, Jeremy Ruckert (Lindenhurst), Tyler Davis (Mepham), Tom Kennedy (Farmingdale) and Jack Coan (Sayville) , among others, have gotten their shots in the NFL. This week, two other Suffolk players also are heading to NFL teams as undrafted free agents: JJ Laap, a receiver from Ward Melville who played for Division III national champion Cortland, signed with the Rams and Messiah Swinson, a Bay Shore product who played at Long Island Lutheran, agreed to terms with the Green Bay Packers.

Add Jawhar Jordan, who spent part of his childhood in Farmingdale before playing high school ball in Arizona and was drafted by the Houston Texans in the sixth round just before Laube was selected, and it’s actually quite the hotbed. They aren’t all represented by DiBenedetto, but they do represent the region and his vision.

Next year the list may grow even longer. Jonathan Mendoza, also from Westhampton, is a transfer lineman from Yale to Louisville for the coming season and figures to garner the league’s attention. Same for Joey Slackman, a transfer linebacker from Penn to Florida who played for Commack.

“Long Island is not really known for football,” Laube said. “Everyone thinks Long Island is just a lacrosse area. Me and Matt and Joe, we want to show that hey, especially out east here, there is good football. We want to show the world that there is good stuff out here. Me, Joe and Matt are so close now, the whole community is behind us. These small-town kids are stepping onto the biggest stage. It’s such a cool story.”  

Building a bond, trust

DiBenedetto, 29, who works for the larger One for One agency led by veteran agent Andy Simms, has known Laube for nearly two decades, having gone through the Westhampton schools in the same grade as his older sister, Haley. He remembers meeting Dylan when he was a little tyke playing up a few ages against locals on his older brother’s teams.

“This kid has been telling me since he was 6 that he was going to play in the NFL,” DiBenedetto said.

Laube already was a running back at the University of New Hampshire when the pandemic hit. With the local gyms closed, folks from the community would come by the Laube house to work out in the basement. That’s when DiBenedetto and Laube became even closer. Between sweaty reps, DiBenedetto was talking about the 2020 draft and the players he was representing in his first class of NFL players.

“And Dylan goes, ‘That’s going to be me one day,’  ” DiBenedetto said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, we’ll make sure we get you into a training camp.’ And he goes, ‘No, I’m going to get drafted.’ I remember that conversation distinctly.”

Laube had his own guarded skepticism about DiBenedetto, too. “He would always tell me, from high school on, ‘I’m going to become an agent and be your agent,’  ” Laube said. At that time, DiBenedetto was just starting law school and Laube wasn’t even getting any offers to play college football. “I’m like, ‘Sure, sure, sure,’  ” Laube said.

Their improbable goals converged soon enough.

Still, when it came time for Laube to select an agent last fall, DiBenedetto wasn’t the automatic choice. Laube’s parents were against having a local guy represent their son and Laube himself insisted that DiBenedetto go through the same vetting as everyone else who wanted the job.

So there was DiBenedetto, in the Laube dining room he had visited so many times before, making his professional pitch.

“He blew us away,” Laube said. “The things he was saying, he truly believed in who I was and he knew who I was as a person. For him to say all the things he was saying, it meant a lot . . . He was unbelievable. We stayed close. From that point on, I wanted him to be my agent.”

Laube said he saw a lot of himself in DiBenedetto.

“He grinds,” the running back said. “Same with me. Chip on his shoulder. Coming from a smaller town, having to work his butt off. We’re very similar in that way.”

DiBenedetto didn’t know Goncalves for as long. He first reached out to the Eastport-South Manor High School product after his standout freshman season at Pitt. Soon they had built a similar relationship based on their shared roots and perspectives.

“There are a lot of agents, but for him to be from Westhampton, 15 minutes away, and represent me, it’s a big thing,” Goncalves said.

Goncalves, an offensive tackle, probably would have been drafted no matter which agent he selected. If he hadn’t gotten hurt last season and missed most of 2023 with a toe injury, he might even have been a first-round pick.

Laube — who is undersized for a running back, hails from a small college that played at the FCS level and brings an unorthodox skill set as a receiver — required a bit more of a sell to NFL teams.

Laube took care of his end of that task with standout performances at the Senior Bowl and the NFL Combine. DiBenedetto was left to navigate the rest.   

Pressure of the draft

Besides constantly touting his client to NFL scouts and front office execs last Saturday, when the fourth through seventh rounds of the draft were taking place, and giving as much attention as he could to the rest of his clients, DiBenedetto tried to keep the Laube family sane during the process. As other running backs started to come off the board, Kyle Laube, Dylan’s father,  the one who had his doubts about DiBenedetto months earlier,  was starting to wonder if the agent was up to the job . . . and texting him to that effect in very colorful Long Island language.

As the sixth round began DiBenedetto looked at his fiancee, Dana Stachnik — also a Westhampton High School product — who was watching the proceedings with second-hand interest.

“I was half joking but half serious, and I told her that if Dylan doesn’t get drafted, we’re going to have to move to Florida,” DiBenedetto said.

Soon enough, though, DiBenedetto was able to text some good news to the Laubes.

The Raiders were very interested in selecting Dylan with the 208th pick. There were some more dicey moments as that spot approached and they also began to consider taking wide receiver Brenden Rice, the son of Hall of Famer Jerry Rice. Eventually, though, they landed on Laube and made the call from Vegas to the Remsenberg living room where he was waiting.

“It was worth it,” DiBenedetto said, still sighing with relief long after the far-from-inevitable conclusion. “It was all worth it.”  

NFL: New Friendship League

Despite having grown up in such close proximity and playing at rival schools, Laube and Goncalves never knew much of each other until recently. Laube was a year older, and the year he helped Westhampton win the Long Island championship as a senior, Goncalves was sidelined with a knee injury.

In 2021, Pitt played New Hampshire and DiBenedetto tried to engineer a postgame meeting between them. Goncalves tried to find his fellow Long Islander on the field after the game, but the lopsided 77-7 result had Laube uninterested in hanging around long enough to exchange pleasantries.

“It was the most embarrassing game I have ever been a part of,” Laube said. “I just wanted to go home. He was trying to find me and I just wanted to go home. I talk to him now and I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry.’ He says he would have done the exact same thing.”

They managed a quick hello at the Combine, but the hectic schedule there, which had them in separate position groups, prevented much fraternizing. A quick passing hello in a hallway was all they could squeeze in.

Just days before the draft, though, DiBenedetto finally got his two guys together. He took both to the Yankees game on April 22. Predictably, they hit it off. They’ve even trained together a bit in the Laube basement gym since then.

Later this week, Goncalves and Laube will part ways, leave Long Island and be off to begin their pro careers. Goncalves will participate in rookie minicamp in Indianapolis, Laube in Las Vegas. Two kids from the same part of Long Island trying to make their NFL dreams keep coming true.

Well, three, really. Two of them up front and another behind the scenes with some tears still in his eyes.

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.