Burwell: Fear of distraction might slow Sam’s search for a new NFL home
• By BRYAN BURWELL
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/bryan-burwell/burwell-fear-of-distraction-might-slow-sam-s-search-for/article_f4260845-5957-55cd-af7e-2acc63e03dc4.html
From the moment he embarked on his National Football League journey, the one thing Michael Sam desperately wanted to be was a football player. But today, just two days from the start of the NFL regular season, the former Mizzou star is without a job.
The Rams released him on Saturday, then passed on him when they assembled their 10-man practice squad on Monday. Now comes the cold-blooded portion of his football life, the one that doesn’t particularly care how badly he wants to play pro football, or how many people are rooting for (or against) him.
This is the cruel phase where late-round draft picks struggle to get a job. This is the part of the journey that few fans hear about. This is the anonymous grind of NFL dreamers who must work out on their own, keep in shape and keep believing that the phone will eventually ring.
Sam has some difficult decisions to make over the course of the next few weeks.
Does he want to wait for an NFL team to call, hoping that someone’s dire circumstance creates a need for a pass-rushing specialist?
Does he make the anonymous Monday and Tuesday workout circuit, traveling around the league performing for general managers and personnel directors with the faint hope of earning a spot on a practice squad?
Or does he travel another road, heading north to the Canadian Football League, where he can get the valuable playing time he needs to convince NFL teams to give him another chance?
We will learn a lot about his plans over the course of the next few weeks. What we know for certain is that several teams have at least explored the possibility of signing him to their practice squad. The trouble is, most of them are reluctant to do it quickly, and unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.
Over the weekend, several NFL sources made it clear that several teams were interested in signing Sam to their practice squad, but feared that the minute they brought him as they prepare for their regular-season opener, the media frenzy would follow. So apparently, the frustrated rookie will have to wait at least another week, because even as a practice-squad player, some teams fear he would create a stir the moment he arrived at their practice facilities.
Before you start with the conspiracy theory that he’s being blackballed because of his sexuality, the reality is he’s actually being penalized because of things completely out of his control. This isn’t as much about homophobia as it is about the basic paranoia of pro football organizations. Coaches are in constant fear that distractions will crop up that will disrupt their regimented routines.
Even hearing Rams coach Jeff Fisher tell everyone that Sam did not create one moment of distraction for the team, it’s impossible to ignore the outside influences that did create a stir around his stay with the Rams.
On a week like this, when every team is preparing for its regular-season opener, the fear that another “shower habit” story would be unearthed by another overly ambitious reporter was just too much to bear.
According to several NFL sources, they readily admitted that the ESPN report by Josina Anderson last week where she asked players about Sam’s shower habits in the locker room “did him no favors.”
And you know what? That really stinks.
For most of the summer here in St. Louis, reporters have taken the mature and ethical approach to Sam’s story. The majority of the media, both local and national, have all acknowledged the historical aspect of Sam’s story, documenting the obvious milestones of the NFL’s first openly-gay athlete, without trying to dig up salacious behind-the-scene details.
What makes Sam’s current situation all the more unfair is that the distractions that NFL coaches and GMs now fear from Sam never lurked inside the Rams locker room. It came from beyond the walls, where everyone was concerned to varying degrees about his sexuality. And make no mistake, a lot of people cared deeply about Sam’s circumstances, even the homophobic bigots who screamed the loudest whenever his name was mentioned.
They were the ones who behaved as though his sexuality was contagious and just the mere act of talking about it – or chronicling the simple history of his being the first openly gay athlete in the NFL – would turn us into a nation stricken with gayness.
They used words such as “abomination” and much, much worse. Their bigotry was sometimes cloaked in religion, but most often was simply the most vile, ignorant and intolerant form of bigotry. Hatred and fear of something different. No one in the Rams’ locker room had any issues whatsoever. Like Chris Long and so many other former teammates said, this was always about football to them.
It was a wonderful example of how quickly the world can grow, how rapidly smart young people can become enlightened. The Rams did an honorable job of making this the best kind of story of all, one that should have allowed him to earn his way in this football life based on the merits of his ability, not the fear of his lifestyle.
And now Michael Sam is at home this week wondering where his football life will lead him next. He ought to be on an NFL roster right now, and a lot of the reason he isn’t has nothing to do with him.
That’s just not right.
Michael Sam can play in the NFL, and I just hope someone else gives him to chance to make that dream happen.
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