Michael Sam - NFL's first openly gay prospect

[Socnorb11]

Again, 31 other GM's passed on Sam's for 6 rounds............. that's unprecedented for a player of his caliber. You think all of them didn't want him because they're Christians........... or does that just apply to Dungy?
.
Edit: You're completely misunderstanding his statement at 4:58. He was asked if his faith will bleed into the controversy, and he says it always does. What I interpret from that is that people are going to bring up Dungy's faith.......... which is exactly what has happened in this thread

Dungy himself openly volunteered without even being asked that he doesn't agree with Sam's lifestyle. You can't honestly believe him when he pretends to be open and welcoming to other viewpoints and pretends to support Sam's career.

Dungy believes in a Christian lifestyle. Dungy himself said that he's had many non-Christians play for him in the past. You surely know that's true. He's not going to disallow players on his team because they're non-Christian.

[cardsfansince82]

Dungy believes in a Christian lifestyle. Dungy himself said that he's had many non-Christians play for him in the past. You surely know that's true. He's not going to disallow players on his team because they're non-Christian.

I don't need you to regurgitate what he said for me, I'm perfectly capable of processing what he said on my own. I'm also capable of reading between the lines. What I could use from you is some examples of when he's said that he completely disagrees with the Muslim lifestyle. Or campaigned against Jews being able to marry. Or said he wouldn't draft an atheist because they create too many distractions. Otherwise his statement about non-Christians doesn't mean much. That entire interview was a poor attempt at damage control. I would actually have more respect for him if he doubled down on his [expletive] opinions and put his job on the line, rather than backpedal and grovel like he did.

[Freed Roger]

Until this thread, I never knew Dungy's religious inclinations and that he was a fellow Promise Keeper. Still, his Sam comment was dumb/unnecessary even if he was baited and even if ALL NFL teams thought the same as him to some degree. He's a boring analyst not worth hearing....case in point, I can't bring myself to watch that interview. Zzzzz..Other than that, he seems like a nice guy.

[Freed Roger]

Again, 31 other GM's passed on Sam's for 6 rounds............. that's unprecedented for a player of his caliber .

How is it unprecedented? Most of what we were hearing was he was "graded" as late round pick. Here's a pretty thorough scouting analysis of game tape -completely sans the off field stuff.
http://mmqb.si.com/2014/02/13/michael-s ... nfl-draft/
Yeah, it's just one opinion which the author admits is often wrong, but most other ones were like this scout- I doubt the scouts are the ones using off-field critera "and all that" in their ranking.

Missouri’s defense has better players than Sam. If Sam was a standout, you would see the Missouri coaches break from the rotation late in the game to get the best players on the field. That didn’t happen, and it stood out in the must-win finale against Texas A&M. On the Aggies’ final three possessions in a 21-21 game, Sam played five of nine snaps. It could be argued that Sam is the fourth-best pass rush prospect on the Tigers. Right end Kony Ealy, who could be a top-10 pick this year, drew much more attention from offenses and had to face the opponent’s best tackle, on the left side of the offensive line. Markus Golden, Sam’s backup on the left side, will be drafted higher than Sam when he enters the draft a year from now. Golden could be a star. He is more athletic and faster than Sam, and watching the Tigers play, I thought Golden was better. There could be other factors as to why he played behind Sam, including Sam’s leadership and smarts. Or perhaps the Missouri coaches didn’t want Golden, a junior-college transfer, to start, in order to increase his chances of staying another season. Sophomore Shane Ray is also more athletic than Sam, a quality valued on special teams at the next level. Same goes for senior end/outside linebacker Brayden Burnett.

My conclusion. Sam was a good player for one season in college. He was productive, so the accolades he received were earned. But 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—though he will be helped by the fact that this draft is not deep with pass rushers, and those are always needed.

[lukethedrifter]

Baggage

[Socnorb11]

I'm not going to continue to debate whether Sam should have been drafted higher. Mostly, that's irrelevant anyway...... so I'll just drop it. I think (hope) we can all agree that there was some consensus that his "coming out" could hurt his draft stock.

According to Bill Barnwell, At least one team was worried about drafting him due the PR fallout if they ended up cutting him.

When I heard that stuff pre-draft, I NEVER interpreted it as meaning that Christian GM's would hesitate to pick him because of his non-Christian lifestyle. I always interpreted as meaning that they didn't want the drama and attention that was coming with it ("distractions"). To me, I think it's really presumptuous to think that Dungy's comments were directly related to his Christianity........ when others have clearly said/thought the same thing that he said, and haven't had their stance tied to Christianity.

Dungy's stance, according to the Patrick interview: You have to evaluate each player independently, whether it's Vick, Tebow, Sam, or someone else. Many players come with side stories. If you think they bring enough to the table from a football standpoint to make it worth dealing with the distractions, then you draft them. In Sam's case, Dungy didn't think that it would be worth it, all things considered. Most NFL teams also didn't think so, apparently.

[Socnorb11]

Dungy believes in a Christian lifestyle. Dungy himself said that he's had many non-Christians play for him in the past. You surely know that's true. He's not going to disallow players on his team because they're non-Christian.

I don't need you to regurgitate what he said for me, I'm perfectly capable of processing what he said on my own. I'm also capable of reading between the lines. What I could use from you is some examples of when he's said that he completely disagrees with the Muslim lifestyle. Or campaigned against Jews being able to marry. Or said he wouldn't draft an atheist because they create too many distractions. Otherwise his statement about non-Christians doesn't mean much. That entire interview was a poor attempt at damage control. I would actually have more respect for him if he doubled down on his [expletive] opinions and put his job on the line, rather than backpedal and grovel like he did.

Has anyone ever asked him about those things? There's no doubt in my mind that he'd be happy to respond to any of those issues.

You realize that he didn't make the Sam comments off-the-record, right? A Tampa reporter asked him a very specific question, and he answered it. If anything, you should be trying to find the name of that reporter and blow up HIS twitter account, because he's the one who made an issue of Sam being gay here.

[thrill]

Wait, you're pointing me to specific snippets of the interview, but saying that your comments had nothing to do with the interview?

Dungy himself admitted to his religious ethics played into the comments, I pointed you the time code of where you could hear him say that. Everything after that was my own opinion and that was pretty clear. Nice try.

You feel weird being the only person defending him? Think maybe that would indicate something?

[Socnorb11]

Wait, you're pointing me to specific snippets of the interview, but saying that your comments had nothing to do with the interview?

Dungy himself admitted to his religious ethics played into the comments,

No he didn't. You're completely misunderstanding or intentionally misrepresenting the context of that statement, as I explained earlier. He was asked if his Christian background would bleed into this controversy, and he said yes, it always does. Based on this thread, it clearly has. He NEVER said or implied that his comments were triggered by his Christianity.

Do I feel weird being the only one defending him? Not really. Discussions on this forum with regard to faith are typically pretty one-sided...... but I can live with that. I thought MrSaigon gave a pretty fair & balanced perspective earlier in the thread.

[thrill]

You're completely misunderstanding or intentionally misrepresenting the context of that statement

Heh