"A trailblazer?" Sam said during the combine. "I feel like I'm Michael Sam. I just wish you guys would see me as Michael Sam, the football player, instead of Michael Sam, the gay football player. There's a lot of support out there. I just want to do what I do, and that's play football."



Sam has been projected to go anywhere in the draft from the third round to later rounds.



The Ravens discussed Sam during interviews at the combine.



"He's been a good player, he's been in a locker room," general manager Ozzie Newsome said. "It's what you, the media — what are you all going to do with him? Once he gets in and he can rush the quarterback and get the quarterback on the ground and make tackles, he's going to be a good teammate. The biggest thing is how the media is going to deal with him.



"This is something that's new to the league. We all will have to adapt to it. What I was talking about is I think our locker room has had the tendency to adapt to things a lot smoother than maybe the media does."



Earlier this year, retired former Ravens linebacker and special-teams ace Brendon Ayanbadejo told The Baltimore Sun that he believes Sam isn't a great fit for the Ravens' defensive scheme. However, he thought that the organization would otherwise be a great fit for Sam in terms of the locker room culture.



Following a sluggish workout at the combine where he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.91 seconds and had a 25-inch vertical leap and bench pressed 225 pounds 17 times, Sam improved his numbers during his campus Pro Day workout at Missouri.