Remember When Michael Sam Was Supposed To Be A Distraction For The Dallas Cowboys?
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/remember-michael-sam-supposed-distraction-040002095.html
As any long time reader here at BTB knows, I am loathe to point out when the esteemed members of the media who cover and comment on the Dallas Cowboys are totally, completely, ridiculously wrong. But it is hard to not notice that they were a teensy bit off on the dire predictions they made about a certain player signed to the Cowboys' practice squad.
Boy that Michael Sam has been a huge distraction in the NFL eh?
— trey wingo (@wingoz) September 17, 2014
Remember Michael Sam? He was briefly the hottest story in the NFL as the first openly gay player to be drafted. After he failed to make the roster or be signed to the practice squad with the St. Louis Rams, the Cowboys' next opponent, there was some hand wringing about him being out of the league before Jerry Jones and his staff decided to bring him to join the Dallas practice squad. The team downplayed it, but the move made sense for a franchise looking for talent at rushing from the edge.
Maybe the Sam story would continue to attract attention in a normal year, but this is not a normal season for the NFL. Shortly after Sam arrived in Dallas, the sky fell in on the league. The full video of the Ray Rice assault on his then-fiance broke. Combined with the Greg Hardy and Ray McDonald situations, the NFL found itself engulfed in a firestorm of criticism following the incoherent and inconsistent way things were handled by the teams and the league. Then the Adrian Peterson child abuse indictment crashed in on top of that. With the foolish attempts by teams to find ways to get these players back on the field despite the tidal wave of negative coverage and growing public opinion that they should not be seen playing on national TV, at least until these issues are resolved legally, almost no one seems to be paying attention to the Sam story.
All the predictions about the huge distraction Sam would be in the harsh media glare seem quaint now. (Think for a moment: Were you even sure he was still with the team?) The Sam story seems totally insignificant when compared with professional athletes that brutally render the woman they supposedly love unconscious with a blow to the head, or a grown man whipping a child with a piece of a tree and leaving open wounds. The decision to bring Sam to Dallas has turned out be a very smart one, with a lot of benefits for all parties.
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