The best Twitter joke this year was W. Kamau Bell trying to start the hashtag #letshaveanuanceddiscussion.
Having a nuanced discussion, one tweet at a time, is only slightly
easier than being that damn camel trying to make it through the eye of a
needle. Today, as the last rounds of the NFL draft played out on
multiple television channels and the names of players scrolled across
the screen, nuance was the last thing many of us wanted to exercise.
Michael Sam, the Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Year
who told the world he was gay last February, was going undrafted,
eventually picked 249th in the seventh and last round by the St. Louis
Rams. This in and of itself was history, and not only because Sam was
drafted. No SEC DPOY had ever gone that long before being selected. In
fact, no SEC DPOY in the last ten years had even lasted past the second round.
Having a nuanced discussion, one tweet at a time, is only slightly
easier than being that damn camel trying to make it through the eye of a
needle. Today, as the last rounds of the NFL draft played out on
multiple television channels and the names of players scrolled across
the screen, nuance was the last thing many of us wanted to exercise.
Michael Sam, the Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Year
who told the world he was gay last February, was going undrafted,
eventually picked 249th in the seventh and last round by the St. Louis
Rams. This in and of itself was history, and not only because Sam was
drafted. No SEC DPOY had ever gone that long before being selected. In
fact, no SEC DPOY in the last ten years had even lasted past the second round.
The reasons for this are on one level complicated. Michael Sam had a terrible NFL combine.
He is a “tweener” neither big enough to play defensive line nor quick
enough to be an every-down linebacker. He projected even before he “came
out” as a mid-round pick. All of that being said, Michael Sam fell down
draftboards, costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars, because of
the slow steady drip of groupthink
that became a flood and took over the process. NFL “draft experts”
prepared the public to not expect any history this weekend, emphasizing
that his sexuality had nothing to do with it.
He is a “tweener” neither big enough to play defensive line nor quick
enough to be an every-down linebacker. He projected even before he “came
out” as a mid-round pick. All of that being said, Michael Sam fell down
draftboards, costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars, because of
the slow steady drip of groupthink
that became a flood and took over the process. NFL “draft experts”
prepared the public to not expect any history this weekend, emphasizing
that his sexuality had nothing to do with it.
But f Michael Sam’s sexuality’s being an inhibitor to his draft
status is not your starting point for understanding all of this, I
believe you’re lost without a compass. This is not to argue that all
general managers in the NFL are homophobic. It’s not about what kinds of
prejudice lurks in the hearts of individual executives. It’s about a
systemic problem in an NFL that loathes independent thinkers, fears
political controversy, and hates “distractions.”
status is not your starting point for understanding all of this, I
believe you’re lost without a compass. This is not to argue that all
general managers in the NFL are homophobic. It’s not about what kinds of
prejudice lurks in the hearts of individual executives. It’s about a
systemic problem in an NFL that loathes independent thinkers, fears
political controversy, and hates “distractions.”
The NFL's homophobia is in an institution that equates being gay with
being “controversial”, or “political”, not realizing that this is their
problem, not Michael Sam’s. This is the league imbibing and
regurgitating the same backward logic that keeps people in the closet,
scared to tell their family and friends who they are and doing horrible
damage to themselves and the people close to them. This is why we can
talk until the cows come home about whether Michael Sam is a “tweener”
as a player, his poor combine and all the rest of it but it doesn’t get
at the root of the issue. This is why we can praise NFL Commissioner
Roger Goodell—yes, Roger Goodell—for being out front in supporting and
welcoming to Sam when he came out, but we also need to understand what
happened and why this groupthink about Sam took root.
being “controversial”, or “political”, not realizing that this is their
problem, not Michael Sam’s. This is the league imbibing and
regurgitating the same backward logic that keeps people in the closet,
scared to tell their family and friends who they are and doing horrible
damage to themselves and the people close to them. This is why we can
talk until the cows come home about whether Michael Sam is a “tweener”
as a player, his poor combine and all the rest of it but it doesn’t get
at the root of the issue. This is why we can praise NFL Commissioner
Roger Goodell—yes, Roger Goodell—for being out front in supporting and
welcoming to Sam when he came out, but we also need to understand what
happened and why this groupthink about Sam took root.
As sportswriter Howard Bryant said, Michael Sam is threatening to the
institutional biases that exist in the league precisely because he was
brave enough to try and control his own narrative. For a league built on
idealized notions of machismo and toughness, for a league that speaks
in military jargon like they would’ve been the first one to storm the
beaches of Normandy if given half the chance, they were a profile in
cowardice this weekend. They were scared. It’s the same fear that you
see when Goodell announces that they want to police and punish players
for saying n____, but are scared to do anything but continue to promote a
racial slur as the name of one of its teams. It’s the same fear you see
when they aggressively promote tackle football for kids—with ads
particularly aimed at moms—during the Super Bowl while their own data
comes in at a taxi-cab meter pace about how playing tackle can cause
permanent brain injury in children. It’s the same fear you see when they
suspend one of their best players for smoking weed. What NFL bosses
want, need and crave above all else, is control. Michael Sam represented
a loss of that control because he dared—I will say it again—to try and
control his own narrative. That is the NFL’s problem, not Michael Sam’s.
It also has nothing to do with his forty-time at the combine. And that,
in my view, it is the starting point for understanding why Michael Sam
lasted until pick number 249. All praise to Jeff Fisher and the Rams for
stepping up and not letting this young man suffer the ritual humilation
of going undrafted udner the brightest possible spotlight. All praise
to Michael Sam for his bravery and self assurance to deliver the kiss heard round the sportsworld. All praise for Sam's righteous anger at having slipped down draftboards, tweeting out, "Michael Sam is pissed off for greatness!" But the NFL has issues, and they were on full-display on Saturday.
institutional biases that exist in the league precisely because he was
brave enough to try and control his own narrative. For a league built on
idealized notions of machismo and toughness, for a league that speaks
in military jargon like they would’ve been the first one to storm the
beaches of Normandy if given half the chance, they were a profile in
cowardice this weekend. They were scared. It’s the same fear that you
see when Goodell announces that they want to police and punish players
for saying n____, but are scared to do anything but continue to promote a
racial slur as the name of one of its teams. It’s the same fear you see
when they aggressively promote tackle football for kids—with ads
particularly aimed at moms—during the Super Bowl while their own data
comes in at a taxi-cab meter pace about how playing tackle can cause
permanent brain injury in children. It’s the same fear you see when they
suspend one of their best players for smoking weed. What NFL bosses
want, need and crave above all else, is control. Michael Sam represented
a loss of that control because he dared—I will say it again—to try and
control his own narrative. That is the NFL’s problem, not Michael Sam’s.
It also has nothing to do with his forty-time at the combine. And that,
in my view, it is the starting point for understanding why Michael Sam
lasted until pick number 249. All praise to Jeff Fisher and the Rams for
stepping up and not letting this young man suffer the ritual humilation
of going undrafted udner the brightest possible spotlight. All praise
to Michael Sam for his bravery and self assurance to deliver the kiss heard round the sportsworld. All praise for Sam's righteous anger at having slipped down draftboards, tweeting out, "Michael Sam is pissed off for greatness!" But the NFL has issues, and they were on full-display on Saturday.
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