Quote:
Originally Posted by Marco Polo
I respectfully disagree slightly with you on this one. I think ESPN drove both stories. I honestly don't know one person who likes Tebow and I have lived throughout the Midwest, South, and West during his time as an athlete. I understand the social/cultural importance of Sam and enjoyed the feel good of breaking a barrier but was turned off pretty quickly with the over coverage. Ultimately there was wayyyy too much coverage on both guys who couldn't land a roster spot in the NFL.
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I hear what you are saying. Was Sam a story? Yes. Did anyone really care about the Sam story? Did you care about it? Honestly, who here really gave a crap about the Sam story other than he was the first openly gay player to go into the NFL? My contention is that the NFL was basically forced to draft Sam, regardless of if Sam was really a good player for the NFL. The media basically cornered the NFL into making Sam an NFL caliber player when the reality was, he was a "tweener" (not really a defensive lineman and not really a linebacker) who had a good college career, but did nothing in the combine to set himself apart.
Tebow, OTOH, was always going to get drafted, but he was not (arguably) a first round talent and when the Broncos took him in the first round, welp, the media exposure went through the ruff. Then, because Orton sucked so bad, and many Broncos fans wanted to see what Tebow could do (remember the fans in Denver who put up billboards calling for TT?), Tebow got into the Broncos starting lineup and the Broncos ended up winning enough games to go to the playoffs. The Tebow games were also very exciting to watch because of some of the amazing finishes to games. Even I admit that the year TT came in and the Broncos started winning, it was fun to watch. Then the playoff win and the whole Elway/Tebow story and how all of that panned out (with the Broncos ultimately getting Manning and trading Tebow away) was a big circus.
Two very different stories, one fan driven, the other media driven. Both were stories, but the Tebow story was a legitimate circus full of actual NFL games that were played, while the Sam story was a forced issue that most (I'd guess 99%) football fans really didn't care about and once Sam was drafted, the story should have been over.