Haven't people noticed what happened to Michael Sam and the NFL when he came out? His career has basically been ruined because no team wants to deal with the media circus that will constantly talk about him being gay rather than football. Same thing would happen for actors. The media won't ask as much about their movies and instead will ask about what it's like for them to be openly gay. I think Matt Damon is right. Nobody has to know.

Matt Damon is right (and Everett agrees with him) and it's mostly people with zero comprehension skills that got upset.

That being said, Michael Sam's career never took off because he is less than mediocre on the NFL scale.

>>2

That being said, Michael Sam's career never took off because he is less than mediocre on the NFL scale.

Yeah that too. Rams may have kept him on their practice squad though if there was no media pressuring them to let him start.

Michael Sam's career never took off because he is less than mediocre on the NFL scale.

Do you actually believe this? It's not true in the slightest, and has everything to do with NFL teams not wanting to deal with the "distraction" of having a gay player. The fact that Sam's career faltered reveals a lot about how the NFL functions, actually.

Keep in mind, he was SEC defensive player of the year in college, and typically players who earn that award get drafted somewhere in the first 2 rounds. Sam didn't get selected until the 249th pick in the 7th round, by a team that already had a solid crop of linebackers (and could therefore be justified in cutting him after training camp). So right off the bat you know something's up. And of course his late round selection was justified by "experts" with the rationale that he was a "tweener", meaning that his size wasn't quite right for any position, and that he was too small to be an effective NFL linebacker.

Here's where things get strange. The Rams drafted him with a late pick, so they could claim they were being inclusive, but at a position on the field they didn't have a need for, and despite this scenario where they set him up to fail (and to be expendable), once they actually started playing pre-season games... Sam played great! He actually lead the St. Louis Rams in sacks for the pre-season. So even though he actually played well enough to prove the "tweener" skeptics wrong, the team cut him anyway.

What this actually shows is how faulty the NFL's scouting process is, and that the league is so caught up in measurements (height, weight, speed, statistical projections) that they forget to evaluate a player's heart, his drive to play hard and succeed even if his measurements aren't typical for a position. It also shows just how cowardly all these supposedly macho NFL teams are, since apparently they aren't man enough to face a few extra reporters in the locker room. It says a lot that a team would be willing to cut its pre-season sack leader rather than face the daunting task of answering a couple questions about what it's like to have a gay player on the team.

Hard to disagree with any of that >>4

Yup. It's like if a track team held a try-out for the 100 meter dash, and they deny a spot on the team to the guy who got the fastest time because he's not as tall as the other runners. Clearly, if you can run the fastest, your height doesn't matter. But that's essentially the excuse the Rams used when they cut Michael Sam, which shows that there were obviously other factors involved in the decision.

It's funny, because of the NFL's emphasis on "projections" based on physical measurements and combine/training drills, when the Rams drafted Sam they thought they'd be safe, in the sense that they'd be in no danger of actually having to give him a spot on the team, because his measurements and drill results indicated he wouldn't be successful. So they pick him in the draft and get the credit for making history, but the whole time having no intention to actually keep Sam on the team. 7th round picks often don't make NFL rosters, so there would be nothing out of the ordinary in cutting him. What the Rams didn't count on was Sam actually playing really well on the field, and when they cut him anyway it really exposed how ugly the whole thing was under the surface, both in terms of how the NFL's "meat market" approach is fundamentally flawed, and how hypocritical and cowardly the whole system is.

Sadly, Sam didn't stick it to the NFL by going to the CFL and dominating. He let the circus distract him as well, instead of letting his treatment fire him up. If he'd gone up there and played like he's capable of, the NFL's dismissal of him would've been put into unflattering light. But from his time on the Cowboys practice squad to Canada, he lost his focus and fire and now it looks like the Rams were perfectly right to cut him, as he can't make it anywhere else either.

Yeah, I always thought the same thing about Tim Tebow, too, who has been stubborn in trying to make an NFL roster at the QB position despite the media circus around him. After his stint with the Jets where they really mis-used him, he should have gone to Canada and proven he can actually play, rather than taking an "NFL QB or bust" approach. The parallel is interesting, in that this pre-season Tebow played pretty well for the Eagles, and they cut him anyway, when in reality he probably earned a spot on the team. I just find it so arbitrary as to what media circuses teams are willing to tolerate and which they aren't. Clearly the Eagles and Steelers have no issue with Michael Vick, for example, but for some reason Michael Sam and Tim Tebow are toxic (on different ends of the political spectrum, no less).

When a player decide to go work for espn instead of the CFL, he kind of give reason to the team judging is character no ?

I'm not a big fan of Tim Tebow's personal worldview, but I fail to see how taking a job with ESPN is a negative hit against his character.

I meant by that, instead of going to the CFL. (the espn part is not the point I was making, doing anything else than playing in the CFL) Both could still do it, if you are an obvious nfl player, you can take a 1 year total brake and go dominate the CFL if you want. If they do not do it, I would give the benefit of the doubt to the team scouting professional being right about them.

It is always dangerous for fans to use pre-season game performance and think that they can analysis it better than teams, very often teams decision decried by fans are proven right.

In football or soccer as Americans call it pre season is notg tgaken that seriously because nobody wantgs to get injured. It's used as a warm up and a chance for new players to break into the team and show the fans etc what they have before the real season begins.

This and young fringe player will play harder and look in the eye of the fans (it is the same in hockey and I guess every physical sport with contact) but that does not mean it could translate well in real game vs regular player giving their 100%.

You're half right. Established players and valuable prospects just use the pre-season as a warm-up and mostly just try to avoid getting hurt. However, there are a whole bunch of other players who need to prove their worth during pre-season games in order to make the team, and therefore those players do play 100%.

and therefore those players do play 100%.

That is point, it is normal for team to cut those type of player even if they were the best in the pre-season. They have to make a judgement if it can translate in real game or they were good only because of their effort level.

But it's easier to look better when most of the players just view it as a warm up so hardly try.

Generally speaking the 1st team players play against each other, and then the back-ups play against each other. So, for the most part, the competition is fair in that regard. It's not as if you have back-ups playing at a 100% effort level against people who aren't trying.

Oh cool in soccer as the Americans call it but it's really football they don't do that in pre season. Of course back ups or reserves in soccer aren't considered the best players in the team so it's not like in that pre season he was opposite the best players in the league then.

Well, the reasons are obvious: Vick publically and privately seemed to have changed, everyone said he was the unifying locker room presence in Philly. And so he helped downplay the circus. And before all that he had such otherworldly athleticism and a rocket of an arm (I remember hearing he'd throw 65 yard perfect spirals to receivers in practice). If Vick was a few inches taller, or had Drew Brees's ability to read a D, he'd be a Hall of Famer, I think, with that talent.

Sam was under sized by NFL standards, like Vick is, but doesn't have any of what Brian Billick always called the "track stats" to overcome that in people's confidence. As you pointed out, he plays well, but he's not JJ Watt or anything. Same for Tebow. He can't throw it any better than you or I could, but he's built like a truck and while that helped him dominate in college (along with the ridiculous amount of talent that surrounded him at Florida), it didn't translate to the NFL. He needed to go to the CFL and develop his passing skills. Or even the Arena league, which should've helped his motion get faster. Either one could've help prove his desire, rather than prove his strongheaded-ness.

When it comes to players who don't quite fit a pre-determined mold, teams are faced with a dilemma. In the case of Tebow, if you're going to play him at QB, you have to basically just let him do his thing and build a team around him that fits with his "make it up as I go along because I'm a good athlete" style. That's what the Broncos were starting to do with him before the opportunity to get Peyton Manning came along, and it was essentially working. But if you're determined to transform Tebow into a traditional pocket passer who functions within a conventional offense, yeah, that's never going to work. You either have to be willing to let him play the game his way, or not put him on the field, and every NFL team aside from his run with Denver has taken the latter option. As I've said, I'm not a big fan of Tebow personally, but strictly from an athletic standpoint it's frustrating that the NFL is too rigid in its systems to allow him to play.

I wish the Eagles (my local team) would take a look at Michael Sam right now, since they've had some injuries at linebacker - but as mentioned, that's never gonna happen since they took a clear stance on supposed "distractions" with the cutting of Tebow.

I'm a R#@$&!%s fan, so my team is nothing but a circus of distractions, year after year.

>>22 while I know nothing about that case but football is a teams sport so how do you know maybe he wasn't willing to be a team player or thought he was bigger than anybody at the club. I'm not saying your wrong now but just something to consider because it wouldn't be the first time in sports somebody clashed with the manager or felt he was bigger than everybody at the club.

I know nothing about that case

That's where you should have stopped. Let's stick to the facts.

I'm just pointing out there may be other facts.

When you find out what those are, let me know.

What I mean is it wouldn't be the first time in the history of sports were a player believed they were bigger than the club so the manager has no other choice but to sell them or release them from their contract.

What I mean is, you have no reasonable basis to make that assumption about this particular case. If you have evidence of that, present it. Otherwise, it's a pretty worthless hypothetical.

Well you have no evidence that proves he was kicked off the team because he was gay. You say he did good in pre season however as pointed out above most players don't try in pre season and you said he was playing back up with the other back ups so he wasn't even playing with the best.

Ughh.

Clearly the team wasn't going to come out and say, "we cut him because he's gay." But based on his demonstrated talent level, both on college and at the NFL level, he should have made the team, and it seems most likely that the reason was that the team didn't want the so-called "distraction" of having a gay player.