Inasmuch as I continue to hear outrage over Tony Dungy's comments regarding the drafting of Michael Sam, I wanted to post at least once more to help clarify my thoughts. I'm frustrated at what I see as the inability of the general public to separate what I see as the real issue–in this case, the distraction a player brings to a team verses their overall talent–and the much more sensitive issue of a persons's sexual preference.
Let me again make something clear, that I believe Tony Dungy would agree with (based on his statements): Michael Sam should be be given every opportunity to play in the NFL, regardless of his sexual preference. Can we just get that out of the way? The frustrating part of this whole "controversy" is that we seem to have a difficult time separating what Tony Dungy believes, personally–that marriage is between a man and a women–and how he would operate as an NFL coach. I wonder, if Dungy had never made his personal beliefs public, or if it wasn't a known fact that he was an evangelical Christian, if his initial statement in the Tribune would have even been picked up as controversial.
I don't expect the NFL to be the nations morality compass. It's just not their job. The NFL, as a money-making organization, will respond to the morality compass of culture, but they won't set the standard. At least, they shouldn't. And to the degree that Tony Dungy would apply his personal morality to the drafting process or to the NFL as a whole, I think he's mistaken. I simply don't believe that's what he's doing.
The argument presented against Dungy is that he has, in the past, encouraged the signing of players who came with significant, off the field, distractions. The most common example is that he was a supporter of Michael Vick. The question that I think is wrongly raised, in an attempt to make Dungy look like a hypocrite, is whether Sam's sexual preference is somehow more immoral than Vick's dog-fighting. Of course, the obvious answer is "no", if the issue is about morality. But it's not. The issue is about a) whether a player deserves a chance (yes, in both cases) and b) whether their on the field performance is worth the risk of their off the field distraction. Again, the NFL is not the morality police. The issue really shouldn't be about the cause of the distractions; it should be about the distraction itself (as I said in my last post). I assume that their decision ought to be, and is, based on net-gain to the team and what will bring in the most wins, and the most money. If that's true, then one could make the case that signing Vick, even with the greater "wrong", had a higher net-gain to his team than drafting Sam.
That said, I think I understand where the criticism is coming from. Those who have derided Dungy's comments have largely done so because they believe that, no matter what Sam's talent level, it is worth the risk and the distraction so that people who are afraid to "come out" have a role model in the NFL. They have someone they can look up to who had the courage to say, "I'm gay", and let the chips fall where they may. In the long run, the "chips" that fall will be fewer and fewer. But someone has to go first. In this case, it was Michael Sam. We should be willing to support that, no matter what the distractions may be to our organization.
Of course, that is also applying a certain morality to the drafting process. According to that line of reasoning, Sam should be be given an advantage precisely because he is gay, even if his talent level doesn't necessarily justify his acquisition in terms of net-gain to the team. Typically, a player's off the field distraction will be measured against his on the field performance, resulting in either a net gain to the team or a net loss. ("Talent + Miscellany = Net Gain".) The argument in this case is that, regardless of the distraction, and regardless of the net gain, someone has to go first, and every NFL team should support it and should have drafted him no matter what. That's why the comparison to Jackie Robinson comes up so often. What isn't typically mentioned, of course, is the fact that Jackie Robinson was an all-star caliber player. The Brooklyn Dodgers didn't just "break the barrier", by having Robinson play. They added a significant talent to their team that made them better, and ultimately, probably made them more money. Would they have been willing to "break the barrier" with a guy who was going to sit in the dugout the whole game? Surely, they had the opportunity to do it, but they didn't.
I'm not saying that if the NFL wants to break the "gay barrier" they need to wait until there is a player who is all-star caliber to do it. I am saying that if Michael Sam was a guaranteed pro-bowler, Dungy would have never said what he did. I think his response to the question of whether or not he would have drafted him would have been, "of course!" It's a football decision, not a morality decision.
I recognize that those who passionately argue against Dungy see the cause as being greater than football. The upside, culturally, to have an NFL team draft Sam is worth whatever distraction or risk the NFL team who drafted him will have to take on. I'd argue that it's not on the NFL to make drafting decisions based on morality or "cultural upside". It's a business, and they ought to draft whoever offers the the most net-gain as an organization, regardless of their sexual preference.
So would Dungy draft a gay player? Of course he would. As an NFL coach, (personal belief aside), I don't think he cares much about a players sexual preference. He's looking for the player who provides the most upside to the team. But would he draft Michael Sam? Probably not. Because in Sam's case, the talent didn't justify the media distraction that it received, resulting in a net loss for the organization.
There's a big difference between those two questions and responses. Again, I emphasize: good for the St. Louis Rams for deciding that the distraction of hiring Sam relative to his level of talent, maybe even as a result of what they saw as the "cultural upside", was worth it. I just don't think we should demonize someone who says that, in this case, they probably wouldn't have made that choice.