Back in late August, the first openly gay professional football player was cut from the team who drafted him. 

This player is Michael Sam.

This recent news has sparked debate on whether Sam was cut due to his play on the field or for his sexual preference. The latter is simply not true.

Unless a person has been cut off from social media since April, they have most likely heard of the Michael Sam story. 

Sam played college football for the Missouri Tigers, where he was a team captain. He finished his season leading Missouri in multiple categories and was named the Southeastern Conference Co-Defensive Player of the Year. He was also named a consensus first-team All American as a defensive end. 

There were high hopes for his draft status, and then Sam announced that he was gay.

Sam came out back in February, about three months before the NFL draft. He received a lot of positive support via social media, as well as from those within the football world.  

From here it was time for Sam to begin preparing for the NFL draft in April. Unfortunately it did not go as he would have hoped.

Sam, at six foot two inches tall, is undersized from an NFL defensive end standpoint. After underperforming at the NFL combine, his draft stock fell from what experts were projecting prior.

Despite that, many were impressed with how Sam handled himself when being interviewed post-combine. 

“I just wish you guys would see me as Michael Sam the football player instead of Michael Sam the gay football player,” said Sam in a press conference at the NFL combine.

When the draft came, Sam would have to wait a long time to hear his name called — the 249th pick (7th round), to be exact, by the St. Louis Rams. The news even prompted a press release from the White House: “The President congratulates Michael Sam, the Rams and the NFL for taking an important step forward today in our Nation’s journey.”

Being the first gay NFL player obviously came with a lot of media attention. Sam was followed by many of the major sports media outlets throughout training camp and into the preseason. 

With this microscope put on him, Sam had to show he was able to play as an NFL defensive lineman.

He showed glimpses throughout his preseason that he could one day be on a 53-man NFL roster, just not right now.

Despite tallying three sacks during the preseason, Sam was cut from the Rams and was not picked up by their practice squad. However, Sam was recently added to the Cowboys practice squad.

Seeing a seventh-round draft pick being cut is far from an anomaly. It has even been estimated that fewer than 10 percent of seventh-round draft picks end up making the team they were drafted by. 

“Somebody is going to get cut or not play,” said Carolyn Fowler, a former women’s college basketball player at Appalachian State, in an interview with The Guilfordian. “Coaches take a lot of heat when the general public doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Sam was competing for a spot among one of the best and deepest defensive lines in the NFL.

Guilford College football player Ben Winstead commented on whether he felt having a gay player on the football team would change things from a team perspective. 

“As long as he is someone who is going to help us be successful, then he would always have a place on the team,” said Winstead.