Michael Sam was the co-Defensive Player of the Year of the Southeastern Conference of the NCAA. He played defensive end for the University of Missouri. Despite that, he lacked the ideal height to play defensive end in the National Football League and the speed to play linebacker. He’s strong, but he did not perform well at the NFL combine where players are asked to go through various drills to measure their strength, speed, and flexibility. As a result, his stock in the NFL Draft dropped.
But what really alarmed NFL scouts is that Michael Sam came out as an openly gay man. There have been gay players in the NFL, but no one has ever openly admitted that they were gay before Sam. He wound up getting selected by the St. Louis Rams with the 34th pick of the seventh and final round of the draft. Only seven players were drafted after him.
It’s nice that he will have the opportunity to make the roster of a team from the same state where he starred as a collegiate athlete, but few think he would have been drafted so low if he hadn’t admitted to being gay.
And there were 30 players that had the same or better grades than Sam that didn’t get drafted, so one could say that his coming out is the reason he got drafted at all. I hope not. I’m sure that there are organizations in the NFL that would have steered clear of him because of the “distraction” but if he’d had a better combine I think he would have went higher, possibly the late 5th round.
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○ St. Louis Rams interview Robert Quinn and Mizzou highlights Michael Sam
○ Twitter @MichaelSamFootball
The University of Texas got shut out of the draft and one of their snubbed players was All-American Jackson Jeffcoat (son of former NFLer Jim), Big 12 co-Defensive Player of the Year and winner of the Ted Hendricks Award for the top defensive end (won the previous year by Jadveon Clowney). He was taller and faster than Sam, and teams seemed to have less doubts about his ability to move to OLB. I haven’t looked deeply into who people rated as a better NFL prospect, Sam or Jeffcoat.
Jeffcoat has signed on with the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent. It might be interesting for someone with more football knowledge than me to compare the two and track their development.
Draft prediction Jackson Jeffcoat (LB Texas) as #83 and his scouting report.
Michael Sam was rated #106 for the final rounds – scouting report.
First, let me say that the fact Americans have accepted the whole concept of the professional sports draft is a great example of just how deeply brainwashed we are. Can you imagine and investment banker draft, where top bankers from the Ivy League were given only one option of where to work? And that for half of their expected careers they would be locked into a salary based on their draft position, regardless of performance?
Having said that, you can’t draw any conclusions from Sam’s position in the draft. I have to agree with the two comments before which pointed out that many players with better pre-draft grades were picked below Sam or not picked at all. Every year there are players who get picked much higher or lower than anticipated. This is especially true in the lower rounds, where the players have a less-than-50% chance of being kept on the team after training camp. Thus teams’ decision processes frequently have more to do with seeking players who help out at training camp by filling places in team drills or with picking high risk/high upside players – and thus the pre-draft grades have little influence in the latter rounds. In fact, it’s pretty clear St Louis was doing that high risk/high upside thing with Sam.
to do with his coming out. He had a dismal combine and after that poor showing he was projected to go in the 6th round at the highest.
Disgusting! What has become of our traditions? Our proud American way of life?
What I saw that Sam had been drafted by the St Louis Rams, I wanted to puke my guts out.
It should either be St Louis Cardinals or LA Rams.
Wake up, sheeple!
“St Louis Cardinals or LA Rams”???? You modernist.
A traditionalist would have insisted on the CHICAGO Cardinals and the CLEVELAND Rams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Chicago_Cardinals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Cleveland_Rams_season