NFL Draft week is here and it seems like a lifetime ago that we were all celebrating Michael Sam’s coming out party. According to Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the sentiment in NFL circles is that Sam is now an afterthought and may not even be drafted at all.
“The reason you don’t hear much about Sam anymore a few days before the draft is this is the time for real players,” McGinn writes. “Based on discussions over the last month about Sam’s capability as a player with about two dozen NFL executives in personnel, he’s regarded almost as a non-entity.”
Of the 21 scouts that McGinn polled, three pegged Sam for the fifth round, three put him in the sixth round, and three projected the seventh round.
Five of the scouts said they would sign Sam as a free agent, while seven of the scouts said they wouldn’t sign Sam, even as an undrafted free agent.
Those assessments of Sam should be centered on him being a bit of a tweener and two small to be an every down pass rusher.
“Most of his production was hustle stuff,” said an NFC personnel man. “There’s production, but he’s short, he’s not a really good athlete and he doesn’t play good against the run.
“He’s kind of a one-task pass rusher. Just run up the field. And they swallow him up and kind of push him around.
“It doesn’t fit with being SEC defensive player of the year. But that’s just kind of what he was.”
The conversation without a doubt will center on Sam’s sexuality and whether or not that plays a part in him not being selected at all.
