Who cares. Does anyone know from watching him play whether they think he can make the transition from 4/3 DE to 3/4 OLB so that he can rush the QB and learn to play in space? He is projected as 3rd or 4th rd pick so my guess the combine will be important for him. Looks like we will have 2 thirds and possibly 2 fourths so this may be a good fit. If he plays like Sheldon he could be a valuable piece to the puzzle.
I don't want him on this football team because I don't think he's a very good football player, not because he's gay. Prior to this season he was a nobody. Only 7 sacks in 3 years of playing a lot. His 11.5 sacks this year is overrated. 9 of them came in 3 games. For most of the second half of the season he was shut out and most of his sacks came at home - in that track meet that is Missou's home field. In Missou's 5 road games, 4 of them he was a complete non-factor. Only 1 tackle for loss and 0 Sacks in four games @Indiana, @Georgia, @Kentucky, @Mississippi, all of them not exactly SEC's elites. He's small anyway and was fools gold before his announcement.
the media folks and fruits are going to keep this a big story as he is the "first" to actually admit it. however it should be a non issue and hopefully once we get through the annoyance of this it will become a non issue going forward.
Sam-I-Am Guts to come out, particularly before the combine/draft essentially saying: "before you kick the tires...." Good luck Sam.
Good for him, took a lot of guts and I hope other players follow in his footsteps. It's an unfortunate reality that a lot of players out there are extremely homophobic and he's going to have a tough time no matter who drafts him. I think he will get drafted though, just lower than he was maybe projected to go prior to this. I think it was smart to do it now though with most of the sports focus on the Olympics right now and well before the draft that by the time it comes around it will be "old news" to a degree. Plus if he has a very strong combine it makes it about football again, if he said it after the combine it would be a long time until the draft with a lot of non-football talk.
He has no chance on making the 2014 Jets. None at all. Would be a waste of a draft pick. The Sons of Anarchy and D-Line overall are STACKED. Good for him though.
I bet he came out now because it would've came out anyway at the Combine.. Those guys can and do ask anything and everything. Even if they didn't get it straight from the horse's mouth in their questioning - since he told his Missouri teammates, it could've came out from one of them. ie - "how do you work with individuals different from yourself?" A: "Great - we had a teammate at Missouri that was gay" Q: "Really? who?".... Better for Sam to not have them find out that way - although he's going to get his fair share of questions now.
as jet fans it shouldnt matter if hes gay. kerry rhodes played here, so we already know we can handle gayness on this team. look at that pic and tell me that dude isnt gayer than a 3 dollar bill. you cant
I disagree that it took guts or was done now because of a distracted media. This was a craft fully executed plan organized with the media. He didn't give a press release and now the media is discussing it. He had the media lined up for the announcement and knew the completely positive support, reinforcement and coverage he would get from the media. He was hardly attempting to bury it and simply come out quietly. Additionally, with all the overwhelming support in the media he is getting and will get, now any team that passes on him around where he is expected to go will have to answer the question did they pass on him because he is gay. No team, in this day and age, wants that negative attention. A team may even draft him ahead of that projected slot because, in addition to thinking he can play, will want the positive attention of drafting the first openly gay player. It us win-win all around for him. Hardly takes guts to take advantage of that. He is going to benefit from this announcement.
He may benefit, he may not. It's too early to tell and I don't think anyone is in a position to say for sure what is going to happen. He could slip in the rankings or jump up or maybe nothing will change at all. Regardless it took guts to say it because he's going to be the first openly gay NFL player sooner than later and that alone takes guts because while most of the media and front office might treat him very positively not all his team mates, opponents, fans and fans of the opponents are going to feel the same way. He's likely going to have to deal with some degree of discrimination and while I anticipate the league will set an example for the first person to get caught doing/saying something to him that is homophobic it 100% is going to happen. That's something he has exposed himself to that if he had kept quiet he wouldn't have been exposed to, thus it took guts. Generally being the first to do anything is going to come with varying degrees of issues, I wouldn't expect Jackie Robinson-style discrimination but I highly doubt it just won't ever come up even once in a negative fashion.
