Michael Sam comes out

[JasonEvans]

I am sure there will be loud shouts of outrage and prejudice when NFL teams start passing on Michael Sam in the 3rd round. Though most articles written over the past week make it clear that Sam was projected to be a 3rd rounder at best and perhaps not until the very end of the draft, everyone is going to think that he belongs in the third and that he is only slipping because teams are afraid of the gay thing.

Well, I found this article from SI to be very interesting. They got a writer to watch almost all of Mizzu's games from last season and he did an objective analysis. He did not talk to any NFL scouts or officials. He just watched tape and evaluated Sam on his own. There's a lot of interesting analysis here but his conclusion is...

Being a good college player and becoming a good NFL player are two different things (see Tim Tebow). Sam did well for Missouri with a lot of talent around him. A majority of his production came in three games against inferior competition without a need to show much of a pass-rushing repertoire. He doesn’t show much of what the NFL looks for on special teams, and it’s difficult to project a position for him on the next level. For those reasons, Sam would project to be no better than a mid- to late-round pick. He could go undrafted. To my eyes Sam is decidedly average, with nothing exceptional about his game.

-Jason "I hope Sam proves this and other naysayers wrong" Evans

[brevity]

I am sure there will be loud shouts of outrage and prejudice when NFL teams start passing on Michael Sam in the 3rd round. Though most articles written over the past week make it clear that Sam was projected to be a 3rd rounder at best and perhaps not until the very end of the draft, everyone is going to think that he belongs in the third and that he is only slipping because teams are afraid of the gay thing.

Well, I found this article from SI to be very interesting. They got a writer to watch almost all of Mizzu's games from last season and he did an objective analysis. He did not talk to any NFL scouts or officials. He just watched tape and evaluated Sam on his own. There's a lot of interesting analysis here but his conclusion is...



-Jason "I hope Sam proves this and other naysayers wrong" Evans

Even without Jeff Ireland among them, the general managers of the NFL need just one negative evaluation to defend not drafting Michael Sam as a pure football decision. Pro Football Weekly went out of business, it seems, so someone else will have to do it.

I don't know much about the instant or incubated success of late round picks in the NFL Draft, but it would seem that Michael Sam has enough of a narrative to merit being drafted at some point. A narrative alone shouldn't mean a better than expected pick -- Tim Tebow taught us that -- but it should mean a low-risk selection. If your team has, say, a 6th round pick, here are your choices:

1. Draft Michael Sam and get way more excitement than you would ever expect from a 6th rounder.
2. Draft a headcase that fell hard in the draft and get a decent amount of excitement.
3. Draft a local player and get a tiny amount of excitement.
4. Draft for need or whatever, and get no excitement.

Excitement doesn't have to be negative. It could mean ticket sales, better media coverage in a small market, corporate interest, etc.

[throatybeard]

This isn't complicated. The guy is a tweener. There are only a few possibilities.

1) He's so amazing at his position that he can stay at that position at the next level. I don't think this will happen. I want it to.
2) He can be moved to LB. This depends on his willingness and much more importantly, the system of the team that drafts him.

I think there will be some "we don't want the media attention" backlash, but at the end of the day, the biggest factor is who drafts him and what defensive system they run. As Cowherd pointed out today, there are some guys on O who do amazingly well, who you never would have predicted (Foles, Edelman). It's the same on D. If Sam fits in the scheme, he's good. So may guys in the NFL and NBA make it based on whether they fit the team's scheme.

It breaks my heart, watching this in a relatively local media market, that people are going to pass judgment on the guy based on these fairly unpredictable factors. I'd love for him to be the football gay Jackie Robinson. If he doesn't make it in the NFL, many people will attribute it not to his being a bit undersized for DL but to his sexuality.

If only his sexuality weren't even an issue. But we don't live there yet.

[BD80]

You're a flaming a-hole? You've got a place in the NFL:

http://tracking.si.com/2014/02/19/ra...?sct=obnetwork

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2258111.html

Kill people? You're a pro-bowler/Super Bowl MVP:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/foo...0/02/25/part1/

Rice, Suggs and Lewis were teammates on the Ravens.

[BD80]

You're a flaming a-hole? You've got a place in the NFL:

http://tracking.si.com/2014/02/19/ra...?sct=obnetwork

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2258111.html

Kill people? You're a pro-bowler/Super Bowl MVP:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/foo...0/02/25/part1/

Rice, Suggs and Lewis were teammates on the Ravens.

Sorry to hijack the Sams thread, but two more Ravens have been arrested, the second for two counts of battery stemming from a bar fight

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/10...ddata=module-b