I disagree. You can’t compare the two. The Pats drafted Alfonzo Dennard a couple of years ago. Dennard had punched out a cop 4 days before the draft and dropped about 150 spots in the draft. Belichick picked him up in the 7th round. There was some media attention, but not much.
With the first openly gay player, it will be a topic all over the media. I’m sure Rachel Maddow will spend at least 4 shows on the topic. Rush will talk about to light up the switchboad with calls. Bill O’Reilly will give his fair-and-balanced talking points. George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts will report live from Foxboro on cut-down day. Whoopi Goldberg will offer her ‘expert’ opinion on The View. And Elizabeth Hasslebeck will be the go-to girl on* Fox and Friends*.
it will be a media sh*t storm. Not to mention the GLAD Alliance threatening a Patriots’ boycott if the gay guy doesn’t make the final roster.
You seem to be responding to an argument I never made.
I think its pretty obvious that a guy with projected NFL star talent that has a DUI under his belt will cause a much smaller distraction than a rookie with a huge media circus following his every move. But they do take those character issues into account.
There is never a guarantee that college talent will translate to the much faster pro game. He is too small to be a typical pro DE. He is the size of a typical pro linebacker. But is he fast enough to drop back and cover the RB out of the backfield? Big question. So you have a guy who was excellent in college who may not fit in the pros. And with him you have a media circus who will be in a frenzy if you have to cut him or throw him on the practice squad. No thanks, I’ll pass.
Quoted from the SI article and I have not seen anything to refute the questions about him as a player:
He will be drafted but it will be low. And for reasons other than his orientation. Which apparently was an open secret anyway.
On the other hand, at least you know he’s able to handle pressure and the media since he had to know this would create a huge story by making this announcement. Maturity counts for a lot, or at least it should.
Sure you can. (I already did.) Randy Moss had a bad reputation coming out of college and we know how that worked out. People thought Tyrann Mathieu blew his entire future and they also had questions about his talent, and he played well before he got hurt this year. Teams deal with controversies and media pressure on a regular basis. Sometimes it comes from players they’ve just drafted and other times it doesn’t (Suh/Smith/Vick/Roethlisberger/infinity), but teams can handle the attention just fine. The Patriots had a player charged with murder last year and it the interview requests didn’t seem to hurt them. Richard Sherman got just a little media attention after the NFC Championship game and if that affected the Seahawks, I didn’t notice. You can cite “but media attention!” as a reason they shouldn’t do anything, but the truth is that players and coaches get interviewed every week and stuff happens all around the league all the time. Teams can handle media attention, and media attention never lasts forever.
Tim Tebow was perhaps the biggest rookie distraction any franchise could hope for. No bad behavior. Not much controversy, at all, except the serious questions about how his game would translate to the NFL.
And yes, the media circus was probably a bit of a distraction. It didn’t stop teams from looking at him, anyway. And didn’t appear to affect the play on the field. The “distraction” excuse is just that - an excuse. Coaches and players largely don’t care about that. But front offices do love having a ready made excuse for their actions.
Maybe Sam should be drafted lower. Maybe not. But this issue gives teams an automatic out either way by letting them say, “we didn’t want to deal with the media circus”.
Hernandez was charged, arrested and cut all on the same day (6/24). Kraft and Belichick spoke about a week later, and that was that. It was no longer a football issue, just a legal issue.
This would be different. It would be treated by the media like it was Jackie Robinson all over again. (even though it’s not the same in all respects) Adding an openly gay player would be a polarizing issue to a third of the country (both extremes combined), and the media will use this polarization to generate ratings. It would be treated by the media like it was Jackie Robinson all over again. (even though it’s not the same in all respects) Now imagine if Robinson didn’t perform well on the field and had to be sent down or released?
It’s not a straight distraction = we don’t want him equation.
If this guy was a consensus top 10 draft pick teams would balance his obvious talent against the distraction and someone would still take him in the first round.
If he was a Tebow-sized box office (and jersey sales) draw someone would take a chance on him despite the distraction. And still most teams passed on taking Tebow.
But here you have distraction plus someone who many feel has an outside chance of being an effective NFL player. Very little upside to spending a draft pick on a media circus with an outside chance of success on the field.
If only the Patriots could move the goalposts this way! The story broke a week before that. There was a ton of media attention for a while and it continued after Hernandez was cut. The team was unharmed. A few years ago the Eagles picked up Michael Vick from the scrap heap. They got lots of attention and a few protests, I think, but they were fine. The Steelers seemed to get over their QB’s sexual assault and motorcycle accident troubles. We can keep listing examples, but the bottom line here is that even intense media coverage isn’t that big a deal. Teams have staff for dealing with the media, for crying out loud.
(Another incidental way this is relevant: Hernandez was known to be a scumbag when he was in college - although nobody thought he was this bad. He was drafted in the fourth round.)
The NFL regards its players as generally disposable. If the Colts can cut Peyton Manning and the 49ers can trade Joe Montana, the team that drafts Michael Sam can cut him if he doesn’t play well.
And you can keep listing examples, but none of them are relevant or equate. None of them are equivalent to drafting the first openly gay player on an NFL team. You’re comparing issues that are all too common place in the NFL to a first-time event that has huge social implications.
One of the biggest (if not the biggest) sports stories in the 20th century was Jackie Robinson integrating baseball. The media will try to play up a gay football player as a story of the same magnitude. Now for most of the country it will be far short of that, but for gay activists and for the right-wing bible- thumpers, it will be just shy of Armageddon.
I’m saying that despite the social implications, which are real, media attention is media attention. It’s more alike than not, teams are used to it, and it doesn’t last forever.
Armageddon doesn’t go far enough! This is by far the biggest thing to happen to the gay community in days, perhaps weeks. (Seriously, is this a joke? This is not the most significant thing happening for gay activists right this minute, nevermind one of the biggest deals ever.)
Media advocates for both sides will play it up as Armageddon… Gay advocates know they have to keep the momentum going and the moral-majority types will posit this as one step away from permitting gay sex in post-game showers…not just in the NFL but in your local high school, right here in River City!!
This is how it works on social issues. One of my first memories of sports is when Cassius Clay became a Black Muslim as Muhammud Ali. I’m a kid and saying, “What’s the big deal?” but it was a sh*t storm.
They have all the momentum already. Seriously, this is not the biggest gays-in-sports story right now, nevermind the larger political and social issues going on outside of sports. Sam will get plenty of media coverage when he joins a team and starts playing, sure, but I think you’re overstating the Apocalypticness of this by a factor of about 100. And by definition the news always moves on to new things. He’s not going to be the only story in the NFL this year.
And I think comparing it to a player with legal issues means you’re seriously understating it. The next NFL player that commits a serious felony will be, what, the 1,500th in NFL history? Too low?
I compared it to some of the biggest controversies in recent league history. Not only did the teams survive, they held onto the players in many cases. Vick is still with the Eagles (for now). They don’t court this kind of attention, but it’s also not that big a deal for them.
