Tag: michael sam
Report: Gay NFL Player Overlooked By Teams

Report: Gay NFL Player Overlooked By Teams

St. Louis (AFP) – Michael Sam, who is seeking to become the NFL’s first openly gay player, was passed over by 31 teams Sunday just one day after being cut by St. Louis, USA Today reported.

The rookie defensive end cleared waivers and is now free to try and sign with the Rams’ practice squad.

Sam was cut by St. Louis on Saturday as the Rams tried to get their roster down to 53 players for the first game of the season.

Sam thanked the Rams on Saturday for the opportunity and said he would continue to try and land a position on an NFL team.

“I want to thank the entire Rams organization and the city of St. Louis for giving me this tremendous opportunity and allowing me to show I can play at this level,” said Sam.

“I look forward to continuing to build on the progress I made here toward a long and successful career.”

Rams coach Jeff Fisher didn’t rule out adding Sam to the practice roster but said there are others they have to consider as well.

If Sam doesn’t land a spot with an NFL club he could try and sign with the Canadian Football League. His CFL rights are owned by the Montreal Alouettes who currently have former NFL star Chad Johnson on their team.

Sam, selected in the seventh round of May’s NFL draft, was among the last four players cut from the Rams’ lineup, beaten for the final spot by undrafted rookie, Ethan Westbrooks.

A college star at the University of Missouri barely an hours’ drive from St. Louis, Sam made 11 tackles and three quarterback sacks in a strong performance over four pre-season games.

AFP Photo/Dilip Vishwana

Sam Could Fill Role For Rams But Faces Tough Competition

Sam Could Fill Role For Rams But Faces Tough Competition

By Jim Thomas, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS — There’s no doubt coach Jeff Fisher and general manager Les Snead had a sense of history when making the pick. But in the end, selecting University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam was a football decision Saturday.

As they enter a round, or approach a group of picks, the Rams usually rearrange their board and put the names of players who fit into that range at the top of their board.

They had just a dozen or so picks to go in the 2014 draft, and not much of a board remaining when Sam’s name came up. Or more accurately, when Sam’s name went up.

“We kind of (put) some guys high that are in the mix for the next pick,” Snead said. “We often don’t ask the room, ‘Are you fine with this pick there?’ We just put them there.”

So as the Rams approached their back-to-back compensatory picks in Round 7 — Nos. 249 and 250 overall — the placard for “Michael Sam” was placed at the top of the board along with two or three other names.

The Rams ended up picking two of those names, one of them being Sam, the first openly gay player to get drafted in the National Football League.

“We picked him within the process,” Fisher said. “And we’re going to reduce this roster within the process.”

Which raises another point. Sam is joining what many observers regard as the one of the best defensive fronts in the NFL — if not the best.

When defensive tackle Aaron Donald of Pittsburgh was selected No. 13 overall, it meant the Rams had four first-round draft picks on their front four. The others: ends Chris Long and Robert Quinn, and defensive tackle Michael Brockers.

The other starting tackle, Kendall Langford, is entering the third year of a four-year, $22 million contract. In March, the team signed backup tackle Alex Carrington to a modest one-year, $1.5 million contract (which could double in value if incentives are met). And the Rams have good backup ends in William Hayes and Eugene Sims.

That’s already eight bodies on the defensive line, not including Sam or tackles Jermelle Cudjo and Matt Conrath. The Rams will only keep eight or nine, so it will be a tight squeeze for Sam.

“Well, it’s going to be very competitive for him because of the depth and the talent level at the position,” Fisher said. “He’s going to have to come in, and like the rest of his new teammates — these rookies — they’re not in shape. Not in the condition our veterans are in. He’s going to have to work to get in great shape and we’ll blend him in the offseason program and we’ll go.”

Snead added: “Tough group to make, but I think he brings an element that he’ll give some other guys a run for their money.”

And what is the “element” Sam will bring to the roster?

“He’s very versatile,” Fisher said. “He’s got good get-off. He’s got good hand use. He’s a relentless player. He’s a chase guy. How many tackles for loss? I think it was 19 tackles for loss, a big part of their success (at Mizzou).”

Snead had more stats at his fingertips. “Eleven-and-a-half sacks. Probably nine pressures. Screams off the edge,” Snead said.

Sam is a relentless worker. He plays with heart and passion. He’s quick off the edge but doesn’t have that Leonard Little or Robert Quinn burst. He’s got “tweener” size at 6-2, 261 — somewhere between outside linebacker and defensive end.

And when NFL scouts tried him at linebacker at the Senior Bowl, things didn’t go well, to put it mildly. But the Rams have a role in mind.

“As you go through draft meetings, I mean when you talk about Michael Sam, you put him in our category of ‘DPR’, which is designated pass rusher,” Snead said. “That’s what he fits in our scheme, and obviously we like to rush the passer. So, we didn’t discuss him any different than any other player.”

At the end of the day, the Rams had a higher grade on him than a Round 7 talent. All of that college production in 2013 was hard to pass up.

And it didn’t take a scout or general manager or head coach to figure that out.

“When you watch the highlights that he had from college, and just being in St. Louis and seeing a couple Missouri games, the kid’s a football player,” linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “Michael is co-defensive player of the year in the SEC, in what people consider the greatest conference in college football. You put him in a D-line group that is already extremely talented and productive … I think he’ll fit in great.

“I was talking to T.J. Moe (once with Mizzou and now with the Rams) about him, and just the kid is going to come in and work hard. I think that’s just kind of the DNA of those guys in the room right now. They just go to work. They work hard in the weight room. Out on the field. They’re a bunch of good guys.”

Michael Sam is trying to join the club.

This Week In Crazy: Michele Bachmann Is Very Disappointed In Jewish-Americans, And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

This Week In Crazy: Michele Bachmann Is Very Disappointed In Jewish-Americans, And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

5. Pat Robertson

Noted scientist Pat Robertson checks in at number five, for counseling a woman who wrote in to his 700 Club program on Wednesday that her friend should feel free to marry her first cousin — as long as she speaks to a genetic counselor first.

You may think that this is uncharacteristically sensitive advice from the conservative televangelist. You’d be wrong.

“There’s nothing in the Bible that says you can’t marry your first cousin,” Robertson counseled. But there are risks.

“You don’t want to have some mongoloid child,” he added.

Noting his co-host’s disapproval, Robertson quickly backtracked, acknowledging “I shouldn’t say Mongol.”

No, Pat. No you shouldn’t.
4. Steve Deace

Steve Deace

Right-wing commentator Steve Deace pulled off an impressive Tea Party double play on Monday, when he managed to combine two of the far-right’s favorite topics into one absurd conspiracy theory.

Writing in the Washington Times, Deace raged at the attention that openly gay NFL draft prospect Michael Sam received at the NFL draft combine.

“This is Michael Sam. The leftist media’s latest contrived attempt to distract the American people from the daily failures of the president who they cover for daily,” Deace wrote.

But from what are the leftists trying to distract us? If you guessed “Benghazi,” you’re correct (and you may have been reading This Week In Crazy for too long).

“Not to be outdone, a flailing president who seemingly has no time to give answers to the families of four dead Americans at Benghazi, or the millions he broke a promise to that they could keep their current health insurance if they liked it, couldn’t wait to jump on Mr. Sam’s bandwagon,” Deace explained.

“This is the same president who said if he had a son he wouldn’t let him play a dangerous sport such as football,” he added. “Mr. Obama cares about Mr. Sam so much he wants him to risk life and limb playing football. With friends like that, who needs fundamentalist Christians?”

Stay tuned for Deace’s next column, in which he reveals that openly gay NBA player Jason Collins is actually the first step in Obama’s march towards fascism (actually, scratch that joke — he’s already written it).

3. CPAC

Although the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference is only one-third complete, there has already been no shortage of crazy moments. But with all due respect to Wayne LaPierre’s absurd vision of America’s dystopian present, the craziest speech of the day belonged to Donald Trump.

For the second consecutive year, Trump used his speech to attack immigration reform (although this year he didn’t propose an exception for the children of his white, European friends).

“Immigration, we’re either a country or we’re not, we either have borders or we don’t; you have a border, you have a country and if you don’t have a border, what are we, just a nothing? A nothing,” Trump said, ripping a page from the Ron Paul playbook.

He also took a moment to mock President Obama’s 54 percent approval rating — not mentioning that Trump has a 68 percent unfavorable rating in his home state of New York — before comparing Obama to the “late, great Jimmy Carter” (who is, for the record, not dead).

It’s almost hard to believe that this guy is losing to Andrew Cuomo by 44 percent.
2. National Security Action Summit

As crazy as CPAC may be, the real fringe action was taking place at former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney’s alternative conference on national security issues.

Gaffney, a noted islamophobic conspiracy theorist, was banned from CPAC in 2011 for his unhinged attacks against his fellow conservatives (Gaffney would later claim that he was boycotting the event because it was infiltrated by the Muslim brotherhood.) He then launched his own summit to compete with the annual conservative gathering.

Think about that for a moment: Frank Gaffney is too crazy for CPAC.

As Right Wing Watch documented, the speeches at Gaffney’s event reflect its founding father rather well.

There was Rep. Steve King comparing immigrants to animals (again).

Phyllis Schlafly took a break from her war with the brewery that shares her name to lament the apparent decline of the Daughters of the American Revolution, who really knew how to persecute immigrants back in the ’50s:

But the real star of the show was God’s favorite gun salesman, Jerry Boykin, who reminded America that the greatest threat facing our country is President Obama’s non-existent Benghazi conspiracy:

In case you were wondering who would provide a platform for such an outrageous gathering, by the way, the answer is exactly what you’d think: The good, conspiracy-minded folks at Breitbart News.


1. Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann 427x321

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

This week’s “winner” is once again Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), whose Monday appearance on fellow This Week In Crazy favorite Tony Perkins’ radio show was just as absurd as you’d hope.

During the interview, Bachmann accused American Jews of selling out Israel by supporting President Obama in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.

The Jewish community gave him their votes, their support, their financial support and as recently as last week, forty-eight Jewish donors who are big contributors to the president wrote a letter to the Democrat [sic] senators in the U.S. Senate to tell them to not advance sanctions against Iran. This is clearly against Israel’s best interest. What has been shocking has been seeing and observing Jewish organizations who it appears have made it their priority to support the political priority and the political ambitions of the president over the best interests of Israel. They sold out Israel.

Although Bachmann told Perkins that President Obama’s policies will lead to a “final war, destroying and reducing [Israel] to rubble,” thankfully Jewish-Americans won’t have to live with their guilt for long. After all, as the deranged congresswoman loves to point out, we’re in the Biblical End Times.

Despite the characteristic insanity of her argument, Bachmann is actually slightly more qualified to rant about Israel than she is on most other topics — after all, she once lived in a socialist commune there (and apparently had a heck of a time). But don’t expect to hear that little factoid in her inevitable post-Congress career on the Tea Party scam circuit.

Audio of Bachmann’s comments is available atRight Wing Watch.

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!

Top NFL Prospect Michael Sam Say’s He’s Gay

Top NFL Prospect Michael Sam Say’s He’s Gay

Los Angeles (AFP) – An American university football star revealed that he is gay, raising the prospect he could become the first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team.

In interviews on Sunday with ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” and with The New York Times, Michael Sam said he was going public with information that was already known to his teammates and coaches at the University of Missouri.

“I am an openly, proud gay man,” Sam, a defensive lineman who was the Southeast Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year, told ESPN.

Sam is eligible for the NFL draft in May. If he is drafted, he could become the first openly gay player in the league’s history.

“I understand how big this is,” he told ESPN. “It’s a big deal. No one has done this before. And it’s kind of a nervous process, but I know what I want to be … I want to be a football player in the NFL.”

Sam, projected to be a middle-round draft selection, said he decided to speak out now because he wanted to tell his own story.

Missouri coach Gary Pinkel, whose team finished 12-2 and won the Cotton Bowl last season, issued a statement supporting Sam.

“We’re really happy for Michael that he’s made the decision to announce this, and we’re proud of him and how he represents Mizzou,” Pinkel said. “He’s taught a lot of people here first-hand that it doesn’t matter what your background is, or your personal orientation, we’re all on the same team and we all support each other.”

The NFL also voiced support.

“We admire Michael Sam’s honesty and courage,” the league said in a statement. “Michael is a football player. Any player with ability and determination can succeed in the NFL. We look forward to welcoming and supporting Michael Sam in 2014.”

Last March, a CBS Sports report that a current NFL player was “strongly considering” revealing he was gay created a stir around the league, although it never happened.

With hostility to homosexuality still common in the sports world, American Robbie Rogers said last year that he thought coming out as a gay man would spell the end of his football career.

However, Rogers found that not to be the case, signing with the Los Angeles Galaxy to become Major League Soccer’s first openly gay player.

Basketball center Jason Collins also told the world last April that he is gay, a revelation that created a bigger splash in the United States because of NBA basketball’s high profile.

Collins, who was a free agent who had played for six NBA teams over 12 seasons, hasn’t played since his announcement.

AFP Photo/Joe Robbins