N.C. Harrison has some doubts about Michael Sam’s long-term NFL prospects, but he’d love for him to prove that nice guys don’t finish last.
Michael Sam, with the seventh round of the 2014 NFL draft, became the first openly gay man to take part in the sport of professional football in these United States. The former Missouri Tiger has now become a St. Louis Ram. He celebrated his selection by embracing and tenderly kissing his partner Vito Cammisano. There wasn’t really any doubt, in my mind, that someone would pick him up. With 11.5 quarterback sacks—and nineteen tackles for a loss—in his senior year, this young man seemed like he stood ready to make a contribution to any team that might want him.
Michael Sam runs the 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine.
I want Michael Sam to succeed. He seems like a nice young man, good and decent, and we suffer from a dearth of those in football at both the college and professional levels. The NFL has at times seemed filled to the brim with abusers, bullies, addicts and a more than acceptable number of murderers (that being zero, of course, if anyone is medically incapable of reading between the lines). One can’t seem to toss a football on campus without it smacking dead into an NCAA related sexual assault scandal. These miscreants are allowed to continue playing due to the ruthlessly meritocratic nature of the leagues. It doesn’t matter what kind of human being you are, only that you can perform at your position and remain more or less out of custody. If Aaron Hernandez ended up acquitted of however many murders he is accused of committing, and I don’t feel comfortable stating any numbers regarding this as the tally seems to grow daily in an almost exponential fashion, he will likely be able to find work as a tight end in the National Football League. Seeing a guy like Sam make it instead of some of these goons… man, it’d do a fella’s heart good.
Seeing a guy like Sam make it instead of some of these goons… man, it’d do a fella’s heart good.
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The problem is… I’m not sure that Michael Sam will succeed in the NFL, no matter how badly I want him to. He is, first and foremost, a little bit too small to professionally play the position he excelled at in college. It seems strange, I know, to say that a six foot two inch, 261 pound man is too small on any level, but when one takes a look at other defensive linemen in the league they tend to run between four to six inches taller and twenty to eighty pounds heavier. Some of these guys are monsters. The Steelers’ crack nose tackle, Alameda Ta’amu for example, is six feet three inches tall and weighs almost 350 pounds. Gilbert Brown, who has played the same position for the Packers, hovers right around 400, give or take twenty-five pounds. Even Clifton Greathers, who plays the exact same position that Sam played in college, is a full five inches taller and forty pounds heavier than him. The added mass allows these men to go toe-to-toe with equally massive offensive lineman and avoid getting bull-rushed by strong and fast fullbacks running lead blocks and the tailbacks flying behind them.
Sam is also, if his NFL Combine numbers are anything to judge by, neither swift nor agile enough to play the full-time position of outside linebacker, another position for which he seemed well suited (and which the first pick of the first round Jadeveon Clowney, another defensive end in college, was switched to when he was drafted by the Houston Texans, as is reasonably common for lighter, quicker defensive ends). This drove his stock down during the draft, and instead of being picked in the third or fourth round—as expected—Sam was not taken by the Rams until the final round.
So I want you to go out there, Michael Sam, and sack quarterbacks like it’s your job, hobby and religion. Eat them like you need them to survive. Win some games for the Rams and, in doing so, win an even bigger victory for all the nice fellas out there.
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He does have a couple of things going for him, though. One is a lightning quick first step, coupled with an almost demonic glee taken in pretending that quarterbacks are gazelle, he is a leopard, and the field a savannah. This could make him well-suited to a specialty position, brought in as the weak side defensive end in St. Louis’ attacking 4-3 defense on passing downs to confound fat, slow offensive tackles and make life into a living hell for any thrower without a particularly quick release. John Abraham played a similar role for the Atlanta Falcons for several years, and acted as the heart and soul of their defense.
And that, the intangible quality, is both why I hope that Sam will succeed and why I think he just might. The man’s motor runs each play and he attacks it like it’s the last down he’ll ever touch turf. If the aforementioned Mr. Clowney could match this intensity, no offensive player would ever be safe. So I want you to go out there, Michael Sam, and sack quarterbacks like it’s your job, hobby and religion. Eat them like you need them to survive. Win some games for the Rams and, in doing so, win an even bigger victory for all the nice fellas out there.
Photo–Wikipedia
You see now, this article pisses me off. First “There wasn’t really any doubt, in my mind, that someone would pick him up.” – See more at: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/want-michael-sam-succeed-will/#sthash.lUSri8XR.dpuf Really? He was the 249th player picked out 256 players picked. You really had no doubt he would be picked? I didn’t have any doubt either, but I never believed he would be picked for his football skill, but rather to bring a demographic into the NFL fold and the fact that he was the 7th to last player picked seems to support that particularly in light of his lack of size,… Read more »
I never thought he would be drafted based on his football skill, but rather to cultivate a demographic that the NFL may not have enjoyed in the past.
You sound like you have deep issues and thank god the writer ignored answering you. Of course in your oddly biased rage fueled immature and irrational rant about someone whom for all intentions appears to be a nice guy…I love how you omitted that 1. he was originally supposed to be drafted in around the 3rd/4th round and his stock fell when he came out. 2. That as SEC defensive linesman of the year last year-team mates a like who have worked with him and coaches have praised his professionalism, dedication and passion within a team. 3. He is the… Read more »
It’s pretty meaningless to compare Sam’s measurables to a defensive tackle. The two presumed starting defensive ends on the Rams, Chris Long and Robert Quinn are only 1 and 2 inches taller and have similar weights. Sam’s got some good things working for him in St. Louis. And Gregg Williams (ignoring the bounties) is a great defensive coordinator at putting his linemen in positions to succeed, such as isolating them against players weak in protection. The Rams traditionally carry nine defensive linemen, so even though the top four ends are basically set, he’s in a fight against one other player… Read more »
You make a good point, about the respective starters, and that gives me a lot of hope for Sam. I’m not nearly as familiar with a 4-3 defense as I am with a 3-4 (my favorite team has been the Steelers for as long as I can remember, and it’s what we ran in high school where I went) and on a 3 man front the defensive end is a lot more like a tackle–big, thick and powerful. He does seem to work a lot more like an outside linebacker–at least on the weak side–on a 4-3. For what it’s… Read more »
Well,let us examine this from a different lens.Most athletes who play professional sports are as good and decent and as flawed as the rest of us. I dare say if one were to review the history of professional religions one would find all manner of scandal and purient behaviors.It’s all there;greed,murder,lies,gluttony,wars,slavery,sexual abuse and much,much, more.Athletes cannot compare to that history.Liberals have politicized and scapegoated athletes for the last thirty years as being worse than the rest of society and that’s a dangerous road to tread.You know…let he/she who has not sinned,you know the rest.Although it was unfair to other players,I… Read more »
He had actually backed down from Oprah’s reality show, as of a few days ago, with perhaps a bit of pressure from the league. And there have been problematic figures in religion (and politics and the arts) throughout history. That seems sort of like a non-sequitur. I am not a particularly liberal person, nor particularly conservative… I think I’m probably a “small c” conservative more than anything else, to be honest. Bad behavior by ANYONE causes me to look askance. I LOVE sports, which is why I write about it, and as a former athlete (still a small time athlete… Read more »
No he didn’t. He didn’t back down on his own. It took a great deal of backlash for him to back down from it. They should have never planned to do it in the first place.
I’m still not sure why the documentary, in your eyes, would be such a horrendous thing. I like glimpses of peoples’ journeys, whenever I can get them. For what it’s worth, according to this Sam’s agent is casting the decision against the documentary as in his client’s best interest http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/16/michael-sam-show-oprah-postponed_n_5341197.html