Michael Sam has come up in the NFL news cycle again this week, this time with a report saying the league mandated the then-St. Louis Rams to draft him to avoid having to be featured on Hard Knocks two years ago. The franchise is of course moving to Los Angeles now, and the HBO reality show will feature them this summer.
Head coach Jeff Fisher made the rounds on Thursday to deny the league told the Rams to draft Sam in what would have been an effort to appear all-inclusive after the defensive end came out as gay.
Here are some quotes from Fisher during his appearance on ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike in the Morning.
“That in itself is absolutely absurd, it’s 100 percent incorrect,” Fisher said. “I was really taken aback by those comments. It’s insulting, from my standpoint, as it relates to Michael. We had three seventh-round picks. When we drafted Michael he was the best player on the board. Who in their right mind would think that you give up a draft choice to avoid doing something like that?”
Sam has responded, ripping the Rams and telling the Dan Patrick Show that he wouldn’t be surprised if the Rams had a deal with the league.
“Not surprised that the NFL had a deal with the Rams.”
“Makes sense as to why they cut me and not Ethan Westbrooks, even though I outperformed him in our production,” Sam said. “Makes sense why Coach Fisher was very vague the day he cut me from the team.”
Sam earned SEC Co-Defensive Player of the Year honors during his final season at Missouri, but trying to earn a spot with a Rams team that had a deep defensive line made it an uphill battle for him to make the 53-man roster. After he was cut, no other team signed him, surely due in part to his sexual orientation and the media coverage that would bring, but talent would trump that if Sam was an NFL-caliber pass rusher.
A failed stint in the CFL in 2015, which included leaving the Montreal Alouettes due to personal issues for a time, proves the overall point that Sam is not good enough to play pro football anywhere. Leaving aside any back-channel deal between the league and the Rams to get him drafted in 2014, and a brief practice squad stint with the Dallas Cowboys that same summer, let’s not forget the bottom line that Sam is just not a very good football player.
