Judging from the state of this sorry-ass blog, RamView hasn't been doing a whole heck of a lot this offseason, but some former Rams are having more interesting offseasons than others:
* Michael Sam toured the celebrity circuit a bit after the 2014 season, finishing 10th on Dancing With the Stars, behind 68-year-old Suzanne Somers and 70-year-old Patti Labelle. Further killing stereotypes as to what sort of person can really dance, Kurt Warner is still the Rams' dancing champion, with a fifth-place finish back in his season.
Sam participated in an NFL veteran combine this spring, which helped him land a two-year CFL contract with the Montreal Alouettes, but he left camp there this week for what has only been generally stated as personal reasons. Montreal's first preseason game is tonight. Montreal says the door is still open for Sam's return. I think the CFL is the right place for him and it offers him a chance back into the NFL, so hopefully everything will work out for Michael there.
Update: Doesn't look like that will happen. Some sources within the Alouettes organization do not expect Sam to return. He has been put on the team's suspended list. (Montreal Gazette) Team GM Jim Popp:
“There’s nothing to tell you. He wanted to go home, and that’s what
he did. I don’t know why. When a guy wants to go home, they go home. He
had some personal things to take care of... I wouldn’t be surprised if he returns. I’m surprised he left. I was
very surprised. If he doesn’t come back, I would think football’s over
for him. He’s the one that has to face that. But I don’t think he
doesn’t want to play football. That’s why he came here.”
The Montreal Gazette article speculates Sam has worn down mentally from the spotlight always being on him. He also may not have prepared well for the differences in Canadian football, was struggling in camp and may have been hearing about it from teammates, from whom he kept his distance.
I tend to agree that the spotlight has been harsh, not to Sam personally, but to his football career. He was never the most athletic prospect in the world and had a big hill to climb to get in the NFL in the first place. Then his coming out brought a media onslaught - mainly positive, but still an onslaught. That alone was hard enough to manage, and then Sam added distractions to it like the Oprah Channel special and Dancing With the Stars. Football demands a lot of focus and dedication. Sam's unique situation made that very hard by definition, and then he compounded it. Hey, he's young and probably thought he could handle it all.
But his football suffered. Jeff Fisher helped keep a lot of distraction away from Sam, and he looked like a legitimate pro prospect in 2014 training camp. But without that shield from the spotlight, Sam has struggled. His 2014 Senior Bowl and Combine were pretty poor. This CFL detour hasn't looked well-planned. He signed late with the Alouettes - the week before training camp, right? - maybe not realizing he'd have to make adjustments for the CFL style of play. (Hey, I had little idea myself. The d-line has to line up a yard off the ball, and Sam was going to have to play a lot, if not all of the time, out of a two-point stance, which wouldn't be a strength for him.)
Michael Sam set a high bar for himself. He's man enough to clear it but he mismanaged the runup, if only a little, and he won't prove to be athlete enough to get over the top. I salute his effort all the same. He's made that bar easier to clear and the media circus less chaotic for the next player who follows his path. You have to be a hell of an athlete to try to break the kind of social ground Sam did while also trying to compete at the highest level of your profession. That's what made Jackie Robinson so uniquely special.
* Some other ex-Rams (mostly former camp players) whose names I could recognize on current CFL rosters:
B.C. Lions: Alex Hoffman-Ellis, Cord Parks
Calgary Stampeders: Keith Toston, Joe West
Saskatchewan Roughriders: Phillip Steward, Jorgen Hus
Winnipeg Blue Bombers: Sammy Brown, Justin Veltung (according to the CFL website, Veltung wears #73!?!) and Deantre Harlan of Bacone fame
Hamilton Tiger-Cats: Justin Medlock
Toronto Argonauts: Diontae Spencer
Montreal Alouettes: Mardy Gilyard is on their injured list. I also could not help but notice that Chad Johnson (yes, THAT one) is on their suspended list. He had 7 catches for 151 yards last season. Injuries and personal matters limited him to 5 games.
* If you get HBO, you can see former Ram John David Washington on The Rock's new series, Ballers. In the half-hour comedy, Rock, um, Dwayne Johnson plays a retired NFL player who becomes a financial adviser and mentor to current players. One of those is Washington's character, a veteran WR (a 5'9", 208-lb WR? Mmm-kay) who got cut by the Packers for off-the-field misbehavior but gets a second chance with the Dolphins. Ballers comes from the same producers who created Entourage, so there are pretty high hopes for the show, along with controversy whether the show can or will continue to use real NFL team names and logos.
Washington was signed by the Rams as a rookie free agent RB in 2006 and spent a season on the practice squad. He was cut at the end of the 2007 training camp. Ballers is his first significant on-screen role. And, yes, you've heard of his father.
* And as you might guess, an altogether completely different offseason for Lawrence Phillips, who has been accused of killing his cellmate at Kern Valley State Prison (California) in April. There may be more going on here than meets the eye, though (Bleacher Report). Phillips may have been acting in self-defense. He had repeatedly asked for solitary confinement for his own safety but had recently been paired up with Damion Soward, a gang-banger cousin of former NFL WR R. Jay Soward. Damion was found strangled in his and Phillips' cell April 11. Then again, do you really strangle a person in self-defense? Phillips, 39, is currently serving a 32-year sentence for domestic assault against a girlfriend and assault with a deadly weapon (he tried to run over some youths he accused of stealing $100 from him during a pickup football game).
-$-
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