Balzer:"Rams drafted Michael Sam in 2014 to avoid being on "Hard Knocks"

Rams agreed with NFL to not do ‘Hard Knocks’ in 2014 if they drafted Michael Sam: report

BY EBENEZER SAMUEL

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/rams-agreed-draft-michael-sam-avoid-hard-knocks-article-1.2575617

Michael Sam was selected in the seventh round of the 2014 NFL Draft but it may have only been because of a deal the Rams cut with the NFL.
On Wednesday, the Rams were named the subject of this year’s edition of “Hard Knocks,” the HBO show that takes you inside training camp with an NFL team, but according to a tweet from veteran NFL journalist Howard Balzer, they could have been in the show two years earlier were it not for a behind-the-scenes deal with the NFL.

Balzer, citing “sources,” tweeted Wednesday that the Rams avoided the 2014 edition of “Hard Knocks” because of their decision to select Michael Sam, the first openly gay player to declare for the NFL draft, in the seventh round that year.

“Sources say NFL agreed not to have Rams on Hard Knocks in 2014 if they drafted Michael Sam,” Balzer tweeted.

Balzer clarified the tweet several hours later, stressing that it was a predraft arrangement between the league and team to save face and insure that the first openly gay player to declare for the NFL draft did not go undrafted.

“That’s correct,” he tweeted. “Rams didn’t want Hard Knocks even without Sam. League concerned he wouldn’t be drafted. Deal made.”

Neither the NFL nor the Rams responded to emails for comment. But none of this shocked Sam. Sam, who has been out of the NFL since October 2014 and is currently under contract with the Montreal Allouettes of the CFL, retweeted Balzer to make that point.

“I’m not surprised at all,” Sam tweeted.

If true, the report paints a highly questionable picture of Goodell as a commissioner who essentially manipulated the back end of the NFL draft. And it paints the picture of a league desperate to avoid a PR nightmare in 2014.

Entering the 2014 NFL draft, Sam was widely considered a fringe prospect, with little buzz. After his public announcement, his draft stock seemed all over the board, with some analysts pointing to his status as SEC defensive player of the year and pegging him as a fourth-round pick.

Others, though, noted his slow 40-yard dash time (4.91 seconds at the NFL Scouting Combine), lack of pass rush moves, and tweener size (261 pounds) and suggested he was a late-round pick at best, undrafted at worst. The baggage he carried seemed destined to torpedo his stock even further.

“You have the theory, which is the right theory, which is what every official is going to say,” one NFL agent said at the time. “And then you also have the reality. How is it going to affect my team chemistry? That is the unspoken analysis that is going to take place in every war room.”

According to Balzer, that set the stage for the Rams to serve as the league’s safety net. The Rams drafted Sam with the 249th overall pick, just seven picks before the end of the final round of the draft.

The Atlanta Falcons, meanwhile, wound up serving on “Hard Knocks,” as the Rams avoided the show, which most NFL teams view as a training camp distraction because of the constant presence of HBO’s television cameras.

Sam did not last long with the Rams, either, failing to make the final 53-man roster just before the start of the regular season.

He was beaten out by another defensive lineman, undrafted Ethan Westbrooks, supposedly because Westbrooks could play multiple positions while Sam was strictly an undersized defensive end.

Even after Sam cleared waivers, the Rams had so little interest that they did not add him to their practice squad. The Dallas Cowboys signed Sam to their practice squad in early September only to cut him the following month.

Sam has not played in the NFL since, although he tried unsuccessfully to rekindle interest from the league at last year’s NFL Veteran Combine, where he clocked a 4.99-second 40-yard dash.

wv wrote:

One also has to ask, if Balzer knew about this,
why is it just coming out now

Just speculating, but, if it IS real, why is it coming out now? Former employees left behind, maybe one is in the mood and now free to talk.

wv wrote:

I assume the powers that be are gonna deny it outright,
or say, that the deal was
NOT “if you draft Sam, we wont put u on hardknocks”
but instead was simply the assurance that
if the Rams decided to draft Sam ON THEIR OWN,
the league would respect that problem enough to
Not put them on hardknocks.

Big difference tween the two.

w
v

Exactly what went through my mind while reading that. It is a big difference.

And we will never know for sure.

However, I don’t think I care. Even in the worst possible light, it’s not really a bad thing.

A barrier was broken after all, and it would have been bad for everybody – not just the NFL – if there was suspicion that he wasn’t drafted because he was gay. He got drafted, he got a chance, and there was no negative fallout. And it didn’t hurt him any.

zn wrote:

Jeff Fisher: Hard Knocks-Michael Sam story is “absolutely absurd”

Michael David Smith

versus

—

League Made Deal with Rams to Draft Sam

Howard Balzer March 23, 2016

http://590thefan.com/league-made-deal-with-rams-to-draft-sam

It’s been almost two years since the St. Louis Rams selected defensive end Michael Sam in the seventh round of the 2014 draft. At the time, the Rams were hailed for being progressive and drafting the first openly gay player in the National Football League. It turns out, according to multiple sources, that the league agreed not to ask the Rams to appear that year on HBO’s yearly summer series, HARD KNOCKS, if they drafted Sam.

Shortly after his college career at Missouri ended, Sam came put publicly, acknowledging he is gay. The SEC Co-Defensive Player of the Year in 2013, Sam was considered a fifth-round pick at best. But, as the draft proceeded on the final day, it appeared he might not be drafted at all. It is believed the NFL didn’t want to face questions about that eventuality, and the Rams were viewed as the ideal spot because of St. Louis’ proximity to the Missouri campus in Columbia, 90 miles away, and head coach Jeff Fisher’s ability to deal with whatever distractions there might be.

So it was that the Rams saved the day, selecting Sam with the 249th pick of a 256-player draft. Now, they have returned the favor.

Two years later, the Rams are now in Los Angeles, and as the annual league meeting closed Wednesday, in one of the earliest announcements ever, the NFL revealed that the Rams will be the featured team this summer on HARD KNOCKS.

It’s no surprise the league wants to showcase the return to a market that has been without a team since 1994. What’s somewhat odd, but understandable in light of the revelation, is that the Rams are now embracing the intrusion of HBO’s cameras in a year in which the distractions and logistics of the move will be a challenge for the organization, coaches and players. Especially since Rams head coach Jeff Fisher has consistently been opposed to having his team on the show.

In fact, in 2014, about two weeks after the draft and the selection of Sam, Fisher was asked about the possibility of the league picking the Rams for the TV show. If no team volunteers to be a part of HARD KNOCKS, the league can pick a team that hasn’t been on the show for 10 years, or doesn’t have a new head coach, or hasn’t made the playoffs for two years. The Rams qualified on all counts.

Fisher said, “We are eligible, but I think it’s highly unlikely they’d ask us to do it. I think this organization has a right to go through training camp with some normalcy.”

Of course, that “normalcy” included a record number of press conferences for a seventh-round draft pick, plus having an ESPN report late in training camp in which teammates were asked about their shower habits and those of Sam. By a woman reporter, Josina Anderson.

And, as if there will be any “normalcy” this offseason, training camp and regular season. In a press release announcing the decision, Fisher said, “This is an exciting time for our franchise. HARD KNOCKS will be an outstanding way to bring our fans into our training camp and preseason, and give a glimpse of the hard work and dedication of our players, coaches and staff as we prepare for the 2016 season.”

Of course, none of those players will be Sam, who was waived in the cutdown to 53 players in 2014, was briefly on the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad that season, and then left the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League in the summer of 2015 without playing in a game.

One player still with the Rams is defensive end Ethan Westbrooks, who earned a roster spot as an undrafted free agent the same year as Sam. His story is an interesting postscript to the Sam saga. The Rams were high on Westbrooks, and he was apparently the team’s target for one of their two late seventh-round picks. However, center Demetrius Rhaney was selected one spot after Sam, as it would have been unseemly to take Westbrooks there.

There is no direct evidence that the teams picking after the Rams were urged (told?) not to draft Westbrooks, but would anyone be surprised if that was the case as a thank-you to the Rams for taking everyone off the hook?

After all, Westbrooks received an unusually large $20,000 signing bonus in addition to having $30,000 of his first-year salary guaranteed. In the world of the NFL, that’s not a large sum of money. What’s notable is that the $50,000 total guarantee was more than the slotted signing bonus/guaranteed money of $45,896 that all of the seventh-round compensatory picks received, including Sam.

In addition, to steer attention away from Westbrooks as it related to any obvious competition initially with Sam, the Rams announced when signing him that the lanky, 267-pound player was a defensive tackle.

I so do not care about this