I have never been happier not to be a Rams fan. And I could not be more thrilled that the Vikings did not draft Michael Sam - which is entirely unrelated to his being gay per se, or for that matter to how good or bad a player he is.
I just would prefer to let the idiotic but inevitable media circus that you know is going to come with him be some other team's problem. And oh, what a circus. Are you ready for this, Rams fans? Your past: Hacksaw Reynolds. Your future: Oprah.
Have a great season!
Michael Sam is getting the Lindsay Lohan treatment ... as in, the openly gay football player is getting his own reality show on Oprah's TV network ... reps at OWN confirm.
The show -- produced by the same people who did Lindsay's show -- will chronicle Sam's journey into the NFL ... and we're told Sam has already been taping the show for weeks.
In fact, we're told Oprah's crew was in the room when Sam learned he had been drafted by the St. Louis Rams ... and clearly knew his big celebratory kiss with his BF would make for great reality television.
Oprah issued a statement saying, "We are honored that Michael is trusting us with his private journey in this moment that has not only made history but will shape it forever."
Unclear when the series is set to debut -- or how the Rams feel about the situation.
Here's a guess. Not thrilled. They won't say so, of course. They can't say so. But Jeff Fisher surely doesn't want a bunch of production people from OWN hanging around his OTA, training camp and preseason practices. He's a complete incompetent if he does.
By the way, you have to love the quote attributed to Oprah about how Sam is "trusting us with his private journey." Would that be "private" journey he's having filmed for a reality show? That private journey?
Just checking.
Supposedly Sam felt his on-field qualities should have seen him taken no later than the third round of the draft, and certainly not as late as the seventh. Let's say his self-assessment is accurate. You want to take one guess as to why he fell as far as he did? Because when you draft Michael Sam the football player, you don't just get Michael Sam the football player. You get Michael Sam the cause. Michael Sam the cultural icon. Michael Sam the reality show star. And perhaps most importantly, Michael Sam the one-man protected class. I have never played footbal (well, not beyond eighth grade), but I am familiar enough with the game to know that a football team is populated by very large, very tough men who operate in a culture in which they constantly challenge each other's toughness and masculinity.
And they say things! It's not unheard of in football for someone to refer to players as "ladies" when they need to toughen up. So. Can the Rams operate as they normally would with Michael Sam around? (Not to mention Oprah's cameras?)
This might be an indication: As I alluded at the beginning, my team is the Vikings, and the Vikings until recently had a punter named Chris Kluwe. Now Kluwe is not gay, but he is a very vocal advocate of gay marriage. That's fine. I disagree, but it's fine for him to say what he wants.
That said, as Kluwe's career with the Vikings wore on, the attention he garnered from his activism grew as the quality of his performance waned. The experience of having Kluwe around became more involved for coaches and the PR staff to manage, while he managed to drop fewer and fewer punts inside the 20 yard line. Eventually, the team got to the point where drafting younger, cheaper and better punter Jeff Locke made more sense, and Kluwe was released.
How did Kluwe take it? Not well. He published a long rant accusing the team’s special teams coach of “anti-gay slurs” and continues to this day – more than a year after being let go by the team – to threaten legal action. The constant implication is that he was released because he was an activist, in spite of clear on-field evidence that the Vikings were better off going with Locke.
Now that’s Chris Kluwe. He’s not even gay. He’s just a publicity-hungry activist. Kluwe was pretty good for most of the years he punted for the Vikings, but his performance tapered off andd now he’s just a problem ex-employee everyone wishes would go away.
Are the Rams prepared for what's going to happen if someone has a problem with their new reality star teammate, or if their new reality star teammate gets offended by something, or if their new reality star teammate attempts to sue the team after they cut him because - as is the case with many seventh-round draft picks - it turns out he's just not that good?
This is the circus that NFL teams did not want to use six rounds worth of draft picks subjecting themselves to. And this is what the Rams will now have to deal with. Michael Sam will have to be a pretty darn good player to be worth all that. And Jeff Fisher will have to be a better coach than I actually think he is to deal with it effectively.
My guess is that it will be a pretty good year to be a Seahawks, 49ers or Cardinals fan. Oh, and I see that the Rams open the regular season at home against the Vikings. Too bad Chris Kluwe is no longer on the team. Just think of the cameo he could have given Oprah.
