via flickr/edrost88
Michael Sam as a Ram.
A St. Louis sports site is claiming that the St. Louis Rams drafted Michael Sam, the decorated Mizzou player who announced he is gay before the 2014 draft, so the NFL wouldn’t force the team to appear on the HBO series Hard Knocks.
Howard Blazer of 590 The Fan cites anonymous sources in his report that the NFL didn’t want to face scrutiny if Sam wasn’t drafted onto a team after coming out in a New York Times story.
The Rams “saved the day” for the NFL’s image by picking Sam, Blazer says, and now the team is returning the favor by agreeing to allow HBO’s cameras to document its transition to Los Angeles for the behind-the-scenes series.
Sam responded tersely to Blazer’s report:
Sam was the No. 250 draft pick, chosen in the seventh round on the third day of the 2014 draft.
Rams coach Jeff Fisher called the story “100 percent incorrect” in an interview on ESPN Radio and said it’s insulting to Sam to say he only made the NFL because of a back-room negotiation over his sexuality.
“I was really taken aback by those comments,” Fisher said on the Mike & Mike show. “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?”
The report claims the NFL leveraged the Rams by threatening to select them for the next season of Hard Knocks. If no pro football team agrees to be featured in the show, the NFL can require a team that hasn’t been on the show in ten years, doesn’t have a new head coach, or hasn’t made the playoffs in two years to be featured.
The Rams wasn’t the only team that met those criteria. So why St. Louis? Blazer’s report says the NFL put pressure on the Rams in particular because “the Rams were viewed as the ideal spot because of St. Louis’ proximity to the Missouri campus in Columbia, 90 miles away, and head coach Jeff Fisher’s ability to deal with whatever distractions there might be.”
After an impressive preseason with the Rams, Sam was cut from the team after training camp and picked up by the Dallas Cowboys practice squad. The Cowboys released Sam months later, and he briefly joined the Canadian Football League. Sam, who has never played in a NFL regular-season game, is now a free agent.
Blazer also speculates that the NFL stopped the Rams from drafting defensive end Ethan Westbrooks so the team could sign him as a free agent after first selecting Sam.
Contact Lindsay Toler by an email at LToler@stlmag.com or on Twitter @StLouisLindsay. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
