Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma made headlines when he appeared on CNN’sAnderson Cooper 360 and said this in regards to Michael Sam and having an openly gay teammate:

I think that he would not be accepted as much as we think he would be accepted. I don’t want people to just naturally assume, like, ‘Oh, we’re all homophobic.’ That’s really not the case. … Imagine if he’s the guy next to me and, you know, I get dressed, naked, taking a shower, the whole nine, and it just so happens he looks at me. How am I supposed to respond?”

SI’s Peter King chatted with NFL executives about whether Sam would be a distraction in the locker room.

He’s not going to get drafted where he thinks he should. The question you will ask yourself, knowing your team, is, ‘How will drafting him affect your locker room?’ And I am sorry to say where we are at this point in time, I think it’s going to affect most locker rooms. A lot of guys will be uncomfortable. Ten years from now, fine. But today, I think being openly gay is a factor in the locker room.”

Last night, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart devoted a segment of his show to the ridiculousness of these stories and asked how Sam could be any more distracting to a team than a player convicted of DUI vehicular man slaughter (Donte’ Stallworth), obstruction of justice in connected with a murder (Ray Lewis), accused of sexual assault (Ben Roethlisberger), screamed the n-word at a concert (Riley Cooper) or killed a bunch of dogs and buried them in his yard (Michael Vick).