Burwell: Sam can use the silence

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RamBill

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Burwell: Sam can use the silence
• By BRYAN BURWELL

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_b6434d2d-b282-5b5c-ac14-b7fab3c4c5eb.html

Late Monday morning, the world was back to normal at Rams Park. The squadron of TV satellite trucks that had been encamped in the parking lot last week had gone. The media hordes had receded and the film makers from the Oprah Network had retreated to who knows where to do who knows what and Rams Park just felt a little less messy. The players and coaches were out back on the grass practice fields running through their OTA routines.

I actually hesitate to call what was going on normal, because lately it’s been difficult to define what passes for normal. And quite frankly, trying to predict what will pass for normal in the not-too-distant future could be a bit tricky, too.

But the good news is the Rams have shrewdly figured out how to eliminate one extremely large hassle from their lives and they’re working hard on preventing another distracting sideshow from settling in here anytime soon.

It’s still somewhat of a debate what exactly the Oprah Network was planning with this “documentary series” on rookie Michael Sam. Was it a serious documentary covering history in real time, a carnival-like reality show distorting it for shock value, or something in between?

The Rams didn’t care. All they knew was they wanted it gone because it would do nothing to help Sam make the football team. It took a few days, but by Friday evening they finally made Sam’s advisers understand this.

So now … finally ... the story can shift to what Sam has been proclaiming for months that he so desperately wanted. Without the documentary cameras around, and without his agents, advisers and publicists trying to maximize the opportunities to document his attempt to become the NFL’s first openly gay player, the seventh-round draft pick will have a decidedly better chance to accomplish his mission.

“I think that often times happens when you have someone who doesn’t understand football,” said Wade Davis, a former NFL player and executive director of the You Can Play Project, an advocacy group that hopes to eradicate homophobia from sports. “What they don’t understand is that going through training camp is one of the roughest things a rookie can go through. What they don’t understand is that there is no story if he doesn’t make the team. There is no happy ending.”

Davis knows what he’s talking about because he spent four years in the NFL and NFL Europe. He did it while keeping his sexuality a secret. He has acted as a consultant to Rams coach Jeff Fisher, his former coach in Tennessee. He spoke to the players and staff last week, and he wants to do everything he can to make sure that Sam becomes a success. The minute he heard about the documentary, he saw problems.

“The docu-series would have been a distraction, and Michael didn’t need any more distractions,” said Davis. “Being openly gay is already a distraction.”

When talking to the players, he had to address a lot of questions, some of them silly, some of them uncomfortable, some of them homophobic. But the questions needed to be asked and answered.

“But the reality was the players all thought, ‘Hey this isn’t what we signed up for. We don’t want the Oprah Network cameras following us around,’ ” said Davis.

And he doesn’t want them around either, because it’s simply not good for Sam, and he also doesn’t think the idea of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” cameras showing up is a good idea, either.

Rams officials all insist that Hard Knocks won’t be coming to Earth City this summer. I hope they’re right, because the NFL owes Fisher and the organization big time. If not for Fisher drafting Sam on the final day of the draft, Commissioner Roger Goodell would be standing in front of a bank of TV cameras and microphones at the owners meeting right now answering questions about why his league feared drafting an openly gay player.

There are so many other places those HBO cameras could go. The NFL is still trying to make us believe they didn’t dupe the Rams in this process by not informing them of the existence of the deal that Sam had signed with OWN. His people say they informed the NFL. The NFL denies it ever happened.

It doesn’t really matter who you believe in all of this he-said, he-said mess. All that matters now is that everyone move away from trying to turn Sam’s difficult journey into a circus. It doesn’t make it less unpleasant if the NFL shield is stamped on the product or the Oprah brand is behind it.

If it gets in the way of Sam making the football team, there’s no reason to do it.

“I don’t want to watch a documentary if it ends up with (Sam) getting cut,” said Davis. “I’m really glad Michael and his (agents) finally understood that, too.”

There is no point in misplaced priorities. There is no need for real-time documentation of history if no history is actually made.

“It’s very simple,” said Davis. “Do you want to be a football player or do you want to be famous?”
 

Boffo97

Still legal in 17 states!
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Feb 10, 2014
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Dave
I thought the article was going to be about Bradford.....
As did I.

And he is getting silence he can used. Certain people are getting so focused on Sam that they're ignoring... um... Sam.