Michael Sam was considered a mid-rounds pick before he told the press about his sexual orientation. That's actually what makes it such a potentially unfair situation for both him and the league. If he was a consensus first-round pick then teams would be ripe for criticism if they passed on him, especially if he addressed a particular weakness for any of them. But he was considered a 4th or 5th round pick (3rd round was as kind as draft prognosticators went, if I am not mistaken).
No team will want to pick him early, because they'll face criticism for making a "public relations pick" and if he fails to make the roster they'll be criticized for cutting him. I think that the NFL is hoping he doesn't get drafted too low, or there might be criticism that his sexual orientation was used against him. Better for him to get picked in one of those mid rounds (6th at the latest) by a team that gives him a shot to compete and can afford to keep him on the roster for at least a couple of years if he doesn't turn out to be a starter. Ideally, he gets picked in those mid rounds and goes on to a solid NFL career and another stereotype finally bites the dust.
No team will want to pick him early, because they'll face criticism for making a "public relations pick" and if he fails to make the roster they'll be criticized for cutting him. I think that the NFL is hoping he doesn't get drafted too low, or there might be criticism that his sexual orientation was used against him. Better for him to get picked in one of those mid rounds (6th at the latest) by a team that gives him a shot to compete and can afford to keep him on the roster for at least a couple of years if he doesn't turn out to be a starter. Ideally, he gets picked in those mid rounds and goes on to a solid NFL career and another stereotype finally bites the dust.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
