There is something pure that I have always appreciated about football.  As a woman, I am already in a minority among sports fans, because that just isn’t really our thing.

It isn’t like I spend my waking hours during the fall talking about my fantasy league or watching ESPN.  And now, I won’t be doing a whole lot of the latter, since ESPN decided to camp out at Michael Sam’s House waiting to catch him in a lip lock with his boyfriend when he was selected by the St. Louis Rams.  I won’t be doing it for one very simple reason.

ESPN has decided that the NFL needs to become a political and social concern, and not a league of football teams.  And the NFL has decided that they would welcome this change.  ESPN is also personally invested in his success, which is going to lead to problems.

“If 32 franchises fumble this moment, as some still predict that they will, history’s judgment just won’t be sorrow. It will be derisive laughter, aimed at a league thus deemed by many to be unworthy of its place in contemporary society. Michael Sam has met his challenge. What will the NFL do?  The only answer that matters is just hours away.”

I know this because for about two straight (LOL) days, you couldn’t turn on any news outlet anywhere without hearing about how awesome it was that the St. Louis Rams had taken the NFL’s first openly gay player in the draft; about 7 picks from dead last.  This kvetching and caterwauling happened about 7 minutes before the Rams let everyone off the hook.  Not a whole lot of talk about all of the other players who worked unbelievably hard to make it to the draft, just a never ending stream of media about one guy and constant references to his liking dudes instead of ladies.

Michael wasted no time in getting out there and then stopping short of letting everyone know that his position in the draft was because he was gay, or black, or both…

Sam, selected late in the seventh round, said NFL teams chickened out from drafting him, although he stopped short of saying that his draft stock dropped because he was the first openly gay prospect in NFL history.

I watch sports to bond with my husband and son, I muddle through the terms and boredom of it all sometimes.  But there are times that I appreciate the purity of it; like when the Boise State Broncos beat the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl, or Tim Tebow taking the Denver Broncos past the first round of the playoffs with a touchdown in overtime.  This is where you can see the meritocracy of it.  You can see that it didn’t matter if anyone was gay or straight, or black, or white, or hispanic or asian on either team.  All that mattered was that two teams, who had the best players they could get were playing their hearts out and asses off to win.  The meritocracy of sports is perhaps one of the most beautiful things ever inspired by God into the brain of man.  We like watching the best do what they do best.

The completion of Michael Sam’s martyrdom will be if/when he doesn’t make the team, or gets sent to the practice squad, or gets cut and goes to play in the Canadian Football League and America will get to hear from ESPN (and likely a bunch of other sports media figures as well) what a racist and intolerant bunch of rednecks we all are because Michael Sam isn’t in the NFL because he is gay.  If he doesn’t get to start every game, or hold every record in the NFL, and be voted into the Hall of Fame before he gets out of the league; there will be whispers in the sports media about how the league is filled with intolerant racists who don’t want to see this man succeed.

Which is when ESPN will no longer be relevant to me.  Because sports fans, if ESPN nor the NFL haven’t noticed, don’t really care about where your sexual proclivities lie.  We want to watch you do your job and play the damn game.

There are others out there that opined that Michael might be feeling a bit full of himself, and they pointed it out.

“But Sam is wrong if he thinks being SEC Defensive Player of the Year or an All-American should make him a high draft pick. Those are media awards, and NFL teams couldn’t care less what sportswriters think. For proof of that, Sam needs to look no further than his fellow Associated Press All-American defensive end, Jackson Jeffcoat: Despite a great college career and a Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year award, Jeffcoat went undrafted. NFL teams weren’t discriminating against Jeffcoat when they passed on him, they were simply calculating that he lacks the size and strength to be a great defensive lineman, while simultaneously lacking the speed and burst to be a great linebacker.”

In fact, there is a video up on ESPN right now of him talking at a press conference about his determination “to be great.” The only reason that a draft pick from nearly dead last has got an interview video on ESPN talking about anything is because he is gay.  The reason he was picked about 7 picks from the back of the pack is because Michael sucks…

Oops..  At football I mean…

The NFL will find itself an irrelevant afterthought in sports history if they continue to fine players who have personal opinions and express them or spend their media time focusing on the sexual preferences of their employees.  ESPN will be a small blip on the sports media radar when advertisers will take their money elsewhere, and sports fans will just stop watching because of their social advocacy.

And that is because Sports fans don’t give two poops in a popsicle which way you swing.  We would prefer that athletes shut up and just play the damn game…