Great job as prognosticator, pittstang. You nailed it!
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i brought this subject up briefly in one of the many draft threads, and this guy seems to have also picked up on it
http://www.outsports.com/2015/4/30/8...hael-sam-draft
shane ray and micheal sam, almost identical players. same position, same team, same coach, same system, same type of production. in fact, ray was sams backup until sam graduated.
one got busted for drugs the week of the draft and slides but still goes in the first round. the other comes out as gay after being named SEC defensive player of the year, and goes with one of the last picks in the draft, and still can't find a job even though the on field talent and passion is there, not even as a backup special teams player
it sure does seem like the nfl has a problem with gays, even though they say they don't
message to other gay football players, "don't ask, don't tell"
Don't know if I totally buy that, especially the part about 'on field talent'. Everything I've seen about Sams is that he was a marginal talent who was never seen as a player who would go in the first few rounds of the draft even before he came out.
I'd say he was hurt a lot more by running a 4.9 forty, follow by a > 5sec time at the veteran combine didn't help.
sam ran a 4.73 at his pro day, on the same track that ray ran a 4.68, i think it was
ray did 21 reps, sam did 19
ray had a 33 inch vert, sam had a 30
neither did any of the on field drills at the combine
other "measurables", ray is an inch taller, sam was 10 pounds heavier (but still considered too small to be a DE, not a problem for ray)
as the article mentions, the college stats were almost identical, the players were almost identical. when sam came out, people said he didn't test well, and you can't just judge a guy by what he did in college on film. when ray dissappointed at his pro day, the same people said, you can't look at the numbers, you can see on the game film how good he is
40 YARD DASH: 4.91 SEC
BENCH PRESS: 17 REPS
VERTICAL JUMP: 25.5 INCH
BROAD JUMP: 114.0 INCH
3 CONE DRILL: 7.80 SEC
20 YARD SHUTTLE: 4.70 SEC
His numbers were pretty bad.
7.8 3 cone is basically undraftable as an edge rusher... the reason he got drafted was his college productivity alone. Btw, I think Ray is a better than average bust candidate. The fact he is not a taboobuster is only a slight bonus.
Longer arms than Sam. Bigger frame, with potential for growth. Taller. Drastically better vertical jump and more explosive. Much better all around athlete. Sam would never have been drafted in the first four rounds because of a myriad of things that have nothing to do with his sexuality. I do think it's more than likely that coming out hurt his draft stock a bit, but that was more to do with the media than biggotry on the part of the NFL.
The fact he is not on a roster right now has much more to do with how bad he is than his choice of sexual partner. If Vic Beasley came out a few weeks before the draft, he would absolutely have been drafted by the end of the 3rd round. Probably well before then.
I will say if he was a UDFA for the Packers (just a hypothetical not an argument) I would have expected him to live at least one year on the PS. Against the Packers, he trashed the RT 3 times in a relatively short time frame and had at least 2 QB hits (1 sack)*. He would have had his own thread here and a bandwagon committee after a performance like that.
Now could he have done that against starters? UDFAs don't often make that leap even after M3 compliments their offseason. But I would have been surprised if he had not been given a year to develop.
But I don't agree it was simple bigotry that caused him only to get a 6 game stint in Dallas on their PS. Marginal players who invite distraction are routinely let go. He got Tebowed. Its not a directly analogous, because Tebow might not be able to run the team offense, but a similar dynamic is at work.
*More than the sum total of Jamal Reynolds career
I think this is spot on. Coaches and teams hate distractions. They have enough of them already without a media circus. If Sam were a strong player though, he'd be on a roster. Coaches would probably have an ISIS guy on their team, if the guy could get 10-15 sacks. They'd just hire an extra guy or two to keep him away from sharp objects, like machetes.
Exactly. In order:
1. Production
2. Talent
3. Draft Pick
3. Distraction
And you only get a year or two on talent alone. Change in regime also negates your draft pick status. We could make a board game out of this.
Settlers of the Combine
Now its not fair to either. I think both deserve more of a shot (Tebow* might finally be getting one), but coaches are control freaks and this stuff drives them nuts. I suspect more people are uncomfortable with Sam on their team because questions of religion dividing a team were a settled favorably long ago while a public same-sex preference is very new. The Tebow phenomenon was a singular confluence of events. But the dynamic is along the same lines.
Its going to take a couple of very good players to tamp down the concerns.
* I don't think Tebow is a starting QB, however he is vastly more talented as an offensive threat than 30 of 32 backup QBs. Needing a separate offense is problematic, but Tebow in Philly might develop into a nightmare for opposing defenses, even while he is not a starter.
now the whole "too big of a media distraction" is an argument i can understand
if not for the media circus surrounding him, is he on an nfl roster right now?
you want to throw out some more flat out lies to try and make your point?
arms-
ray- 33 1/8
sam- 33 3/8
sam has longer arms
weight
ray-245
sam- 261
height
ray-6'3
sam- 6'2
wow, soooo much taller
hands
ray- 9"
sam- 9 3/8
verticle (at mizzou pro day)
ray- 33
sam- 30
wow, 3 inches is drastically better?
the 3 cone, sams big downfall
sam had a 7.80
ray- 7.60
better, but still shitty compared to most. (vic beasly had a 6.91, clay did it in 6.90 for reference)
shuttle
ray 4.58
sam 4.70
both shitty and not that different (cm3 had a 4.18)
mike mayock came out and flat out said ray didn't have a good pro day, said he looked "stiff in the hips", same thing that sam had a problem with
paul dawson, had worse numbers then sam in every category, but went in the third
like i said earlier. when ray didn't do anything at the combine and disappointed at his pro day, the "experts" said, "forget the number, watch the tape"
when sam had a bad combine and pro day, the same exact experts said "forget how good the tape looks, the numbers tell us everything"
can most rookies do that against a first string tackle in their first year?
i'm not saying sam would be a star, or even a starter, but i bet he could be a lot better then a lot of guys currently oin the nfl.
but like you said, why would a coach or GM want that media circus for a career backup?
and it would be like the tebow thing. you would have all kinds of people who have no idea about anything related to football, asking everyday why the guy isn't starting
I think Micahael Sam the player is good enough to still be in the NFL and I don't think its the media circus that cost him that opportunity. Some teams hate distractions but others invite HBO into their house. Two main problems with Sam I think. First, even non-first openly gay players need the right locker room fit. There are probably plenty of GM's who didn't want to shake up their locker room by introducing Sam to it. Secondly I think Sam scared a lot of teams with his use of the media. A media circus you can control is free publicity, but a media circus you can't is nightmarish. What Sam did was honest and brave but the way he invited the spotlight, kissed his bf on national tv, etc. Makes you wonder what he might say about his experience in your franchise in the likely event that he doesn't make your team. Remember all the other GM's have eccentric billionairs to answer to. I don't blame them for thinking Sam's not worth the risk.
I thought he was a good player though. Maybe not quite as good as Shane Ray but IMO Ray was still overdrafted and in a shitty class at that.
yeah, but ray didn't do anything at the combine, except the bench, because of a foot injury. a lot of the numbers i'm using for comparisons are from rays pro day at mizzou, and sams pro day, also at mizzou, in the same indoor facility and probably with the same personal running the show and timing it
He was on the PS at Dallas. PS players share the locker room and team activities as far as I know, they just won't suit up on game day. Dallas is a team that lives on media and distractions. They've kept Brent around who fucking killed one of their teammates. If they thought Sam could play he'd still be with them. His even worse numbers at the veterans' combine suggests that he is not committed to doing what is needed to be in the league.
As for the preseason game where he looked good against the Packers, he was going against Sherrod. He could make any defensive player look good.
So, here's this. Ty Montgomery vs Damarious Randall...
Ugh..
https://vine.co/v/eZKdOH2pv3Q
oh god
well at least they both didn't fall down
reason #875 why you don't draft players from the university of florida
jags rookie, and #3 overall pick donte fowler, tore his ACL in the first day of rookie minicamp and will miss the entire season
according to one person involved with the team, the injury was "brutal"
That throw was brutal for as much separation as Monty got.
Red, you're a dumbshit, and more importantly, a cunt. Go crawl in a hole and die, moron.
V I'd say the Montgomery drop is worse, but it is just a practice...
You don't know the nature of our disagreement, yeti. It is not based on facts.
I call a cunt a cunt 10 times out of 10. If you don't like my honesty, then iI'd guess that says a lot more about you than me. As for red, he's a cunt and that's not going to change.