Other major sports have frequent games; an N.F.L. team’s entire regular-season playing time is 16 hours long. Most of the football existence is men sitting around in small meeting rooms. To encourage the immersion, the facility provides all the comforts of home; meals are cooked, your car is washed. It really is intimate. Players and coaches spoke often of their deep affection for one other. Many players came from single-parent families, and to some of them, football’s chief attraction was that it provided surrogates: “Football is my father,” one player told me. What retired players and coaches say they miss most is not the playing, but the camaraderie — having all those loving men around every day.

Love was a word I heard used frequently in regard to teammates and coaches. The very nature of football, focused as it is on strength, virility, grace and manly bonding, has an obvious homoerotic component for those who play and for those who watch. Part of the reason homosexuality is anathema in football, the reason gay players hide their sexual identity and fear rumors will keep them from getting drafted, is the worry that the affection could go too far and force the rest of the team to confront something uncomfortable in their bonds.

Michael Sam’s Missouri teammates knew he was gay long before the public did. They revered him as a person and they respected his privacy by keeping his secret. Think about that — all those college players maintaining such an explosive confidence, and in the age of social media, no less.

If Mr. Sam joins an N.F.L. team, that team can expect abundant media interest. Football teams are chary of anything that will divert attention from the mission at hand. To maintain the comity and the conformity, unofficial N.F.L. policy holds that you never discuss politics, religion or wives. Surely Mr. Sam knew that, but he revealed his sexuality because he understood that persistent rumors he was gay were harming his future. And while he’s obviously aware that his pioneering status will attract scrutiny, he’s emphasized that now that his secret is out, all he wants to do is succeed at an enormously difficult profession. For him, the secret was the distraction.

Later this month, Mr. Sam will be interviewed and perform drills at the N.F.L.’s scouting combine in Indianapolis. By the so-called measurables, he is undersized for an N.F.L. defensive lineman and slow for a pass-rushing linebacker. But N.F.L. executives will tell you that the most coveted qualities among viable college players are character and desire. In that respect, it seems difficult to bet against this player, who has demonstrated unusual public courage and has something significant to prove.