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Nassib played at Syracuse under Bills head coach Doug Marrone, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett and knows what it is to help a struggling team proverbially rise from the ashes. You can even point to the Ryan Tannehill example with Miami in 2012.
The Texas A&M quarterback was long rumored to be the Dolphins' pick due to his former Aggies head coach, Mike Sherman, being the offensive coordinator in south Florida. It happened, and the two sides progressed well together as the season wore on.
With all that in mind, however, is it a certainty to happen? Will the Bills fulfill this perceived Syracuse destiny and take the Orange's quarterback to lead the franchise?
Don't be so quick to etch it in stone.
"We've already evaluated him. I don't know that we can find out much more about Ryan than we already know," Bills GM Buddy Nix said at the 2013 NFL Scouting Combine. "We all have good feelings about Ryan, but don't read in to the fact that Doug coached him that that's who we'd pick."
When presented the prospects of playing for Marrone, Hackett and the Bills in the same state as his college, Nassib was exuberant in his response. In fact, he even told the team's official website that playing for Buffalo would be a "match made in heaven."
Compare that with his quote Friday at the Combine, and it's clear Nassib has pulled back a bit from sentiments that strong.
"I have an opportunity with 32 teams. The opportunity of being here at the Combine and interviewing with some of these teams, one of the things different is you don't get to choose the team you go to," he started off. "Would I like to play for Coach Marrone? Absolutely. We had a great relationship at Syracuse, we won some games. I feel like we had some great success at Syracuse from the time that he came in, so, that'd be great. But at the end of the day I'm just happy to have an opportunity to play on any team. And hopefully I find the team that I'm a good fit for."
Nassib has yet to have any conversations with Marrone in regards to the courtship process that is the NFL Draft. In fact, when the Bills met with him at the Senior Bowl, the head coach didn't ask a single question to his starting quarterback of the past three years.
"I actually took myself out because I think that if I asked him a question, I knew how he'd answer it," Marrone said. "It would be hard for me to ask him a question without laughing, really at the end of the day."
Information for the NFL Draft is power and the Bills head coach knows that it's all part of the game. Fresh out of the college ranks, however, Marrone may possess more intimate knowledge of certain players than some teams could gather in their scouting process.
"You know what's been difficult for me is we do have a lot of information obviously on the Syracuse players as well as a lot of the players that are within our conference or people we played against," he said. "Whether we don't know if that's an advantage or not, we've tried to hold that close to the vest."
According to the Bills GM, there is a lot to like with Nassib.
"He operates in cold weather, the wind, he's played in it even though they're a dome team. He practiced outside and that kind of thing," Nix remarked. "I think that's somewhat important. He's been able to lead that team when it wasn't a great team talent wise. But he's been a winner for 'em for two years and he's brought them from behind. All the things you look for in a quarterback."
He did say, however, that there were six-to-eight quarterbacks that figured in to that same mold that have strong points. But will it be Nassib's name called when the Bills are up to pick at either 8, 41 or if they elect to trade up?
That much is unclear.
Twitter: @JoeBuscaglia