There are a few ways to look at this.
1- Teams didn’t think Michael Sam was good enough to be drafted, but felt pressure to draft him because he was gay.
2- Teams felt that Michael Sam was good enough to be drafted, but didn’t want to deal with having an openly gay player on their roster.
3- The NFL didn’t want it to look like reason #2 so they forced a team to draft Michael Sam.
Ironically all three could be true (different teams maybe felt different ways). Whatever the case, this information has leaked and Rams are in denial mode.
Here is the initial report from 590 the fan.
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.
Here is what Jeff Fisher had to say.
A report suggesting the Rams drafted Michael Sam in 2014 to avoid appearing on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” is “absurd and 100 percent incorrect,” coach Jeff Fisher told ESPN’s Mike & Mike on Thursday.
“We had three seventh-round picks,” Fisher said. “We drafted Michael, who was the best player on the board. And who in their right mind would think that you’d give up a draft choice to avoid doing something like that — something that I think would benefit the organization.”
Here is Sam lying about outperforming an undrafted rookie at the time.
“Makes sense to me why they cut me and not Ethan Westbrooks even though I outperformed him in our production,” he said. “Makes sense why Coach Fisher was very vague the day he cut me from the team.”
Even though Sam had a few sacks in garbage time during preseason as someone in Saint Louis and got daily reports from Rams camp, Westbrooks outperformed Sam and it wasn’t really close. Also, Westbrooks had the ability to play multiple positions something Sam did not have the ability to do. Westbrooks is still in the NFL which is a testament to his hard work and Sam while having a second opportunity with the Cowboys is not in the league.
It is totally and likely possible that Sam doesn’t have a job in the NFL because he is gay, but it is also likely Sam has a sense of entitlement because he is gay and didn’t work as hard as he could have to be an NFL player.