Thank you Tony Dungy

Thank you coach, for saying what most of us and 31 other NFL teams were thinking -- that Michael Sam doesn't bring enough football skill to the table to offset the extraneous b.s. that will come from putting him on a team.

Understand, had Sam not made the shameless calculated decision to "out" himself prior to the NFL draft, he would probably be suiting up for an arena football team now. Maybe.

A marginally talented player, Sam is woefully undersized for a defensive end in pro football, and not athletic enough to play linebacker or safety in the bigs. So had he not put the NFL in a position to endure endless bad publicity for not drafting an openly gay player, we wouldn't be even hearing about Sam today.

And make no mistake, it was a calculated decision on Sam's part to put his choice of sexual orientation front and center. From his public statement on his lifestyle choice, to his attempt to wrangle a reality show surrounding his life, to making sure he'd be photographed kissing his partner Oh look, and they're an interracial couple too! How perfect! on national television on draft day, Sam is attempting to make himself the Sandra Fluke of the NFL.

And the backlash against Dungy was so predictable. I meant to write this post last night, but I wanted to see how the Tampa Bay Times would turn on him. It's important to note that the Times sportswriters (and I use that term very loosely) have deified Dungy for his time here with the Buccaneers and his personal grace and Christianity.

Not to disappoint me, local sports ass Tom Jones let Dungy have it. First calling Dungy a hypocrite for supporting players like Michael Vick, Tim Tebow, Johnny Manziel, Keyshawn Johnson and Warren Sapp.

Really Tom?! You're comparing Sam's football abilities with those guys?! What a joke! And in the case of Vick, Johnson and Sapp, their careers were Hall of Fame worthy before any of them had p.r. problems. Johnson and Sapp were bores, and Vick made a mistake and paid the penalty for it. And Tebow?! Yeah, all that bible stuff is sooo controversial! Talk about apples to oranges. But with Jones, this is typical.

Jones then makes the usual lefty move of equating Sam's attempt to play football the same as Jackie Robinson trying to play baseball. Yeah, dumbass . . . because someone's race is exactly the same thing as their choice of sexual orientation. Must be the word "choice" that Jones can't get his head around.

Dungy attempted to qualify his statement after the poo hit the fan, but he didn't back off his original sentiment saying that while Sam deserved a chance to play pro football, he simply wouldn't draft him because of all the distractions the kid would bring with him.

So hang in there coach. There's plenty of us rational people who feel the same as you. Thanks for having the courage to speak the truth.

Update:
Holy hypocrisy alert Batman! In Friday's edition of the Times, Jones' article on Buccaneer's training camp was titled "Here's hoping for a boring training camp"

?!?!?!

Yeah, the guy who just got done excoriating a Super Bowl winning coach for saying that he tries to limit distractions during training camp is now saying that a distraction-less camp is highly desirable:

"Nothing about the Bucs reporting to camp Thursday was trending on Twitter...Bucs camp is only a few hours old, but its off to a really boring start. That's really good..."

Jones the hypocrite goes on to remind readers that last year's Bucs had a preseason full of distractions that was followed by a season full of losing. And then says that without having the same mess this year, the Bucs "...can concentrate on -- get a load of this -- football on the field."

I don't know what's worse -- thinking Jones is so incredibly ignorant of his own hypocrisy (on this and many other subjects) or that he is deliberately this way and figures he is somehow entitled to spew these contradictory sentiments daily in his columns.

Also interesting today on The Sports Reporters, Mike Lupica attempted to bash Dungy, saying he had set himself up as self appointed conscience of the NFL, and Mitch Albom slapped him down pretty hard on that. Albom and another host went on to mention exactly what I posted in my bit above -- Sam lacks the skill to play in the NFL to begin with and Dungy was saying what everyone else in football was too scared to say. Jemele Hill showed her own religious intolerance when she said it was impossible to separate Dungy's comments from his faith. That's on her though. As Albom said, Dungy did not deny Sam's right to compete only whether his lack of skill was worth the distractions he would bring to the team through his own deliberate attempts to market himself as a famewhoring trailblazer.

And one last thing -- Michael Sam is the antithesis of Arthur Ashe and giving him the award that bears Ashe's name was ridiculous and insulting to Ashe's dignified career and life.

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And for no other reason than I have the picture, here's the not overly well-endowed Lea Michele somehow managing to slip a nipple out of her bathing suit while on a yacht (is everybody yachting these days?):