Some NFL players are notoriously reluctant to attend pre-season workouts. Buffalo Bills cornerback Shareece Wright is not one of them.
Wright joined the Bills last month and found himself at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport at 11pm on Sunday faced with a 550-mile, trip to reach the Bills’ practice facilities the next morning.
“My flight ended up getting in late, so I wasn’t able to make my connecting flight,” Wright told the Bills website. He did not rent a car as he wanted to sleep before meeting up with his new team. “I called one of my ex-teammates that lives in Chicago ... and he wasn’t able to take me and Uber was my next thought.”
He soon find a driver, willing to take him. “This guy accepted the ride and I called him right away and told him, ‘Man, I need to go to Buffalo, NY that’s eight hours are you willing to take me there?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, man, I’ll take you anywhere you need to go. I told him the situation. I told him I had to make it there by 7am.”
The cost of an @uber from Chicago to Buffalo $632.08 fare + $300 tip = $932.08 https://t.co/Esxgt9OeK8
— Tamerat Berhe, Esq. (@TamBerhe) June 6, 2017
His ride cost him $632.08 – price surging doesn’t appear to have been in effect at the time – and tipped his driver $300. Wright is due to make $775,000 this year and has career earnings of $10.8m.
The Bills’ practice this week was voluntary but as a new member of the team, Wright will need to become familiar with a new defensive scheme.
Taking this long drive with @chadj19 and @mikeyj14 back to greenbay.
— Davon House (@DavonHouse) June 6, 2017
Earlier this week, the Green Bay Packers cornerback Davon House also needed help getting to practice after missing a flight. He put out a call for help on Twitter and brothers Chad and Mike Johnson gave him a four-hour lift to the team’s facility. “I went to bed and I was scrolling through my Twitter and saw he needed a ride,” Chad Johnson said. “My brother lives in Hudson, [Wisconsin]; I’m in Eau Claire. I tweeted him that ‘I could come pick you up,’ and in the meantime I texted my brother that House needs a ride. My brother also tweeted him. He was closer so he swung up to the airport and picked him up, and I met him on Highway 29 so my brother and I could keep each other awake.”
