{"id":11264,"date":"2014-08-31T22:35:54","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T02:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/?p=11264"},"modified":"2014-08-31T22:40:02","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T02:40:02","slug":"bills-center-blames-espn-for-michael-sam-not-having-a-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/2014\/08\/31\/bills-center-blames-espn-for-michael-sam-not-having-a-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Bills center blames ESPN for Michael Sam not having a job"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_11201\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11201\" style=\"width: 594px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11201\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/michaelsam.jpg\" alt=\"Getty Images\" width=\"594\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/michaelsam.jpg 594w, https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/michaelsam-300x214.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11201\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Michael Sam was drafted in the seventh round by the St. Louis Rams but after a strong preseason was waived. On Sunday the former SEC defensive player of the year passed though waivers unclaimed.<\/p>\n<p>The Rams have one of the NFL&#8217;s deeper defensive lines but surely not 31 other teams could make that claim. So what gives? Why is Michael Sam still looking for a job in the NFL?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the ESPN factor according to Buffalo Bills center Eric Wood.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RossTuckerNFL\">@RossTuckerNFL<\/a> blame that on espn. No one wants the distraction<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Eric Wood (@EWood70) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EWood70\/statuses\/506209636304048128\">August 31, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>So it is not because the NFL is a bunch of homophobes. It is because they simply do not want ESPN and other news outlets following one player around. Anyone remember Tim Tebow?<\/p>\n<p>I would venture to say that Sam is good enough to be on a practice squad but what team wants to sign him to their squad and then deal with the daily questions of when will he be promoted to the 53-man roster and then play? Any signing team likely has a need for Sam now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Sam was drafted in the seventh round by the St. Louis Rams but after a strong preseason was waived. On Sunday the former SEC defensive player of the year passed though waivers unclaimed. The Rams have one of the NFL&#8217;s deeper defensive lines but surely not 31 other teams could make that claim. So [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[818,739,216],"coauthors":[4],"class_list":["post-11264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-eric-wood","tag-michael-sam","tag-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11264"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11267,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11264\/revisions\/11267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11264"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}