Davie, FL (SportsNetwork.com) – Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said in a statement Wednesday that the Dolphins would welcome Michael Sam with “open arms.”<\/p>\n
Sam, a draft hopeful after an All-American career at Missouri, made news this week by announcing he is gay. If drafted, Sam would become the first openly gay man on an active NFL roster.<\/p>\n
“Michael Sam’s announcement is a significant step in sports and I respect the choice that he made publicly,” said Ross. “His announcement will have no bearing either way on our evaluation of him as a player. Dennis Hickey, Joe Philbin and I all agree on the same thing; we’ll draft the best players that can help us win football games, have high character and contribute to the community. If he is a member of our organization, Michael will be welcomed here with open arms as part of our family.”<\/p>\n
Ross’ statement comes after a season that saw the Dolphins become front page news for locker room dysfunction.<\/p>\n
Offensive tackle Jonathan Martin left the team during the season after alleging bullying by teammates, specifically fellow offensive lineman Richie Incognito.<\/p>\n
Martin tweeted his support of Sam earlier this week, “Hats off to you Michael Sam, that takes some guts #respect.”<\/p>\n
Martin left the Dolphins in late October before a Week 9 game against Cincinnati.<\/p>\n
Incognito was suspended on Nov. 3 and didn’t play the rest of the season. He allegedly used racial slurs and left threatening voicemails for Martin.<\/p>\n
The NFL launched a probe into the Dolphins’ workplace conduct, led by special investigator Ted Wells. The results will are likely be released in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Davie, FL (SportsNetwork.com) – Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said in a statement Wednesday that the Dolphins would welcome Michael Sam with “open arms.” Sam, a draft hopeful after an All-American career at Missouri, made news this week by announcing he is gay. If drafted, Sam would become the first openly gay man on an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[167,24,166],"class_list":["post-14178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl","tag-dolphins","tag-miami","tag-miami-dolphins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}