If the Giants are the team to employ Michael Sam, Terrell Thomas said he would shake his hand and tell him “it’s very courageous what you did.’’ That would not be all Thomas would say to Sam, the first openly gay player to enter the NFL Draft.
“I don’t believe in it, I don’t respect it, but if that’s what you want to do, so be it,’’ Thomas told The Post Tuesday night, a day after Giants owners John Mara and Steve Tisch said if Sam is deemed worthy of selection, he will be taken by the team. “I can’t speak for the NFL or our team or the locker room, I just know what goes on and what type of situation it’s going to put a lot of guys in.’’
Thomas, 29, knows his way around NFL locker rooms, having spent the past six years with the Giants and he feels it is in that inner sanctum where the strain will manifest itself for Sam and his NFL teammates.
“I think the biggest thing is going to be in the locker room,’’ said Thomas, a cornerback and soon-to-be unrestricted free agent. “Not on the football field, not on the practice field but in the locker room where guys are walking around naked, guys are joking, the way coaches talk, the way players talk, you have to be careful what you say because you don’t want to offend anybody.
“When you look at the Miami Dolphins situation [between Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito] that happened last year nobody wants that in their locker room. That’s coming and that’s the unfortunate thing, more than anything, because now it’s about him or his beliefs and not about football.’’
Sam said he told his Missouri teammates of his sexual orientation before the season and that it did not blow up into a big issue.
“The biggest thing is the media, hearing that a bunch of 18 and 20 year olds can accept him, why can’t a bunch of grown men in an NFL locker room?’’ Thomas said. “To be honest with you, the culture’s different. It is a brotherhood unlike no other.
“It changes things around the locker room. How you can act, how you can talk. Unwanted attention to your organization, unwanted questions that you have to answer. It puts a lot of pressure on certain people who don’t want to be in that position.’’
The way Thomas sees it, the team that drafts Sam will not be able to maintain a business-as-usual approach.
“Some team will have to hire a company to educate us and make sure we’re saying the right thing,’’ Thomas said. “All the extra stuff you have to go through, all the extra meetings, that’s something as veteran players we don’t want.
“As a ballplayer, if he can play ball that’s all that matters. I’m sure he won’t be the first gay guy to play in the NFL, but he’s the first openly one out, nobody knows him and I think more than anything it’s going to make the locker room uncomfortable. It’s not easy for society to get that, they won’t understand how tight-knit of a group we are and how we joke about each other, we joke about each other’s family members. You have to, because when you’re going to war, you’re going to battle you have to believe in that person, you have to love that person like a brother. I’m not saying nobody will do the same with Michael, but it’s tough when you just are put in this position.’’
Thomas pointed to the uproar that developed when a video surfaced showing Prince Amukamara getting dumped into a cold tub and the ensuing debate that followed about bullying and hazing in an NFL locker room.
“You have to be able to take that and when you’re dealing with somebody that is considered gay, to make any type of comment of that nature towards him or towards somebody else, you don’t know if you’re offending him,’’ Thomas said. “It changes a lot of things and I don’t know if the NFL is ready for that.’’
There is also the religious component Thomas did not really want to delve into.
“Me being a follower of Christ and a strong Christian obviously that’s a sin and I definitely don’t believe in it,’’ he said. “I don’t care to comment on it any more. You start bringing religion and politics into football it just gets ugly.
“I’m not saying he’s selfish by any means, I know what he did is very courageous, a lot of people wouldn’t do that, but at the same time no one really knows if the NFL is ready for it.’’