What Michael Sam adds to the Dallas Cowboys

Provided his physical checks out, Michael Sam will be a member of the Dallas Cowboys, and the NFL will have it’s first ever openly gay player. Sam will be signed to the practice squad, so that fact should shut up those deriding this transaction as just a publicity stunt.

It’s the DALLAS COWBOYS, the most valuable American sports franchise. They are the biggest brand in the nation’s biggest sport, with a valuation in the billions.

They’re not exactly obscure. And it’s the practice squad…not exactly a high profile position Michael Sam is stepping into. But go ahead and believe your misnomers.

The ESPN Monday Night Football crew were on media conference call today, and here’s what they had to say about Michael Sam. (Note: this call was conducted a few hours before the Sam signing became public)

Mike Tirico: “Unless you watch the videotape, and I have not, of every play of preseason, I think it’s really hard to say that he belongs on a roster somewhere or on a practice squad given what we saw the few highlights of his preseason performance. It doesn’t go back to what he did in the SEC. If we go back and look at that, that production was against some of the poorer teams in the SEC in terms of the sack numbers. That doesn’t mean he didn’t do well as we saw him playing. I think the St. Louis Rams handled this as well as possible. Les Snead and Jeff Fisher are at the top of the list of guys who I think can handle anything that might be a distraction around the team, and it gave Michael a chance to perform as a football player.”

“If Michael Sam can rush the passer and get to the quarterback knowing what a bottom line business this is, I get the sense that at some point people who know football see the productivity in the film that he put out there in the preseason, then he’ll end up with his opportunity to grow over the next couple of years.”

Jon Gruden: “I encourage Michael Sam to keep digging, keep working, stay ready. Somebody will give him another opportunity whether it’s in the NFL or in Canada. But there’s hundreds of players that just got released. Hundreds that didn’t make the final 53-man roster. I just want to point out not only in Michael Sam’s case, but there are a lot of young players out there in a similar situation, and the only advice I can give them is just keep digging, keep working, and get ready for your next opportunity, and hopefully somebody will give them a chance.”

Paul M. Banks owns and operates The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports, Yahoo! and Chicago Tribune RedEye. He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world and been featured in hundreds of media outlets including NFL Network, Fox Sports 1 and ESPN2. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)