Michael Sam invited to first-ever NFL veteran combine, but Tim Tebow is snubbed

[jmyrlefuller]

[float=right]
Michael Sam gets combine tryout
despite schedule conflict w/'DWTS'…

…but Tim Tebow gets left home[/float]Excerpted from:
Michael Sam in, Tim Tebow, Vince Young out at 1st-ever veteran combine
March 12, 2015 • by John Breech

Tim Tebow finally knows how to throw spiral, but he won't get to show off his new skill at the NFL's first-ever veteran combine on March 22 -- because he wasn't invited.

The NFL released a list of players who have been invited to the combine on Wednesday and Tebow's name was nowhere to be found.

Although Tebow won't be in attendance at the combine, Michael Sam will be there.

The seventh-round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft is one of several notable players who are expected to be in attendance at the Cardinals' practice facility when the combine kicks off on March 22.

Sam will be taking a break from 'Dancing with the Stars' to attend the event.

A full list of those who were invited is at the link:
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/25104640/michael-sam-in-tim-tebow-vince-young-out-at-1st-ever-veteran-combine?ftag=YHR6f8d662

[mountaineer]

Tim Tebow beat the Steelers in a playoff game. Michael Sam ... uh, well, he's probably accomplished something on the football field.

Let me get back to you on that.

[jmyrlefuller]

Tim Tebow beat the Steelers in a playoff game. Michael Sam ... uh, well, he's probably accomplished something on the football field.

Let me get back to you on that.

He got a couple sacks in the preseason, one on Johnny Football. He got caught in a numbers game: a more versatile guy ended up getting the last roster spot ahead of him. He probably can play in the NFL, and other than the fact that he gets to do both the reality TV gig and the combine at the same time, probably bending the rules, I don't begrudge him getting another shot.

Tebow, on the other hand, proved he can play in the NFL.

[mountaineer]

Shouldn't you have to have been in the NFL at some point to be considered a veteran? No matter. We have an agenda to advance!

At vets combine, Michael Sam down to last shots at NFL; he doesn't rule out CFL
By Eric Adelson
Yahoo
   
TEMPE, Ariz. – Michael Sam's window of time to make an NFL team is getting shorter, and perhaps his patience is, too.

Sam was here at the Arizona Cardinals' training facility on Sunday for the first NFL veterans combine, one of 105 players invited for a tryout for scouts and team officials, including Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly and Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman.

Sam is the first openly gay player to be drafted into the NFL, but auditions with the St. Louis Rams and Dallas Cowboys didn't vault him to an active game day roster. On Sunday, he ran the 40-yard dash in an unofficial electronic time of 5.10 seconds and then in 5.07 – not spectacular numbers for a defensive end, and slower than his original rookie scouting combine time of an official 4.91.

Sam said he felt he was "just as good if not better than the other guys here," but that's up for debate. A few of the other members of his position group, like Caesar Rayford and Rakim Cox, looked faster and stronger than the former SEC defensive player of the year.

Sam didn't seem eager to answer reporters' questions after the workout, shooting down a query about "Dancing With the Stars" with a sharp, "Next question." And even though the NFL set up a media backdrop that was basically for him to use, Sam never made it there.

Still, he spoke with great self-assurance, saying, "I am very confident I will be playing somewhere."

He did not rule out the CFL. "If there's an opportunity," he said, "I'll take it."

The opportunity is slim for Sam and every other player at this new event, which is designed to give veterans a second or third or last chance at the NFL. Teams are already working with expanded rosters for the offseason, so it's not like there's a dearth of options. And while the actual rookie combine provides new information on players just out of college, pretty much every athlete here has been seen on tape. So in order to stick in the mind of a personnel official here, a player has to stick out here. It's not clear if Sam did that.

Sam and 18 other defensive linemen were put through several agility drills without pads or helmets. It became quickly obvious that as difficult as it has been for Sam to get this far – the pressure of coming out, the difficulty of the draft process, the ordeal of team tryouts, and all the media scrutiny – the latest barrier is one of the toughest: the other players on the field with him Sunday.

Cox, for example, is 6-foot-4, 268 pounds, and faster than Sam. He's been close to the league as well, playing in a preseason game with the Miami Dolphins last year. He showed plenty of quickness and power on Sunday. As outstanding as Sam was in college at Missouri, scouts may lean on raw numbers more than the kind of feel for the game Sam consistently showed.

And yet one other thing has consistently showed: the idea that Sam is a distraction is silly. There were certainly more media here for Sam than there would have been otherwise, but after a season of domestic violence incidents and the Johnny Football frenzy, it's harder than ever to argue that Sam on an NFL team would impede a team from concentrating on winning. In fact, Sam did the NFL an enormous favor here, bringing attention to a new event that otherwise would have drown in March Madness. Sam has done more for the NFL in a day than most active roster players ever will.

And still he's not on a team. Not even a practice squad.

Sam was asked about the Dallas Cowboys' decision to let him go last year. He called it "a business decision."

"I was not surprised," he said, before hedging. "A little bit."

The debate over whether Sam is good enough for a place in an NFL organization is right alongside the debate over whether coming out has hurt his cause. No, he's not the fastest or the strongest, but it's hard to fathom why the defensive player of the year on one of the best teams in college football fell to the last rung of the draft and then fell to this brink of football oblivion.

"It's very difficult to argue that him coming out didn't hurt his football career," said Cyd Ziegler, the co-founder of OutSports.com, who was here at the veterans combine on Sunday.

Ziegler added, "The NFL set back other gay athletes, now that Michael has been left off an NFL team."

Whether Sam wasn't really given a chance, or if he got every chance, it's clear now that he's almost out of chances.

Maybe you're just not NFL material, Mike.

[mountaineer]

This guy's 15 minutes are up. He just hasn't realized it.

From ESPN:

Michael Sam may be the first openly gay player to be selected in the NFL draft, but he said Thursday that there are more gay players in the NFL.

"I am not the only gay person in the NFL," Sam said during a speech and Q&A session in Dallas on Thursday, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "I'm just saying there is a lot of us. I respect the players that did reach out to me and had the courage to tell me that they were also gay, but they do not have the same courage as I do to come out before I even played a down in the NFL.

"Was it a risky move? Yes. But at that moment, the reason why I came out is I thought it wasn't going to be a big deal. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I thought it was 2014, and people will understand that there's gay NFL players. There's gay athletes everywhere. But I was clearly wrong. It was a huge deal.

"The players who have reached out to me and told me about their sexual orientation, it just means a lot. But I will never say anything about who they are, what teams they are [on]. I'm just saying there's some famous people, and I'm not the only one."

Sam, the former SEC co-defensive player of the year at Missouri, was taken by the Rams in the seventh round of the 2014 draft but didn't make the team. He has been a free agent since the Dallas Cowboys released him from their practice squad Oct. 21 and was one of 105 participants in the league's first veteran combine, where he ran the 40 in 4.99 seconds.

"Hopefully I'm not being discriminated [against] because I'm gay," Sam said Thursday, according to the Star-Telegram.   ...

Rest of story

You're just not NFL material, Mike, irrespective of what turns you on, sexually. But I guess it's time to claim discrimination anyway. Works for every other incompetent who doesn't get what he or she wants. Racism! Sexism! Homophobia! I'm a victim!

[flowers]

"Hopefully I'm not being discriminated [against] because I'm gay,"

REALLY SAM???????? How pathetic he is saying that now. Pathetic.

[jmyrlefuller]

"I am not the only gay person in the NFL," Sam said during a speech and Q&A session in Dallas on Thursday, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "I'm just saying there is a lot of us. I respect the players that did reach out to me and had the courage to tell me that they were also gay, but they do not have the same courage as I do to come out before I even played a down in the NFL.

Says a man who was in the NFL for all of a couple of months. Riiight.

OK, let's play the law of average and assume that, if the gay population in the NFL is consistent with that within the national population (that is, 2-3%), there's probably about 30 to 40 gay men scattered across NFL rosters, slightly more than one per team. Do you really think that at least 20 people are sitting around NFL locker rooms, too scared to say anything, but will open up to a half-bit rookie just because he says he's gay?

One of two things is going on here: there aren't nearly as many gays in the NFL as there are claimed in the national population and Sam is thus lying, or there are, but they just don't care and probably don't like Sam using it as a guilt-trip to earn his place in the league dishonestly. The other homosexuals had to earn their keep just like the rest of their teammates.

[GourmetDan]

REALLY SAM???????? How pathetic he is saying that now. Pathetic.

Well, that's one of the privileges of perpetual victimhood.

You get to use it whenever you don't get what you want...