National Football League

Smoot: I played with gay players, 'everyone knew,' 'no one cares'

Published Jun. 29, 2015 6:56 p.m. ET

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Michael Sam is the only openly gay active pro football player in history, but that does not mean he is the only gay player in the league.

Former NFL cornerback Fred Smoot did an “AMA” on Reddit Monday to promote his podcast, and he answered a wide range of questions. Some of the questions had to do with gay players, and Smoot had a pretty interesting response.

Here’s how the sequence went:

Q: Did you encounter any gay players?
A: yes. several.

Q: At the professional level? Was it a don’t ask don’t tell kind of thing, or did everybody on the team generally know?
A: everyone knew

Q: We’re they treated noticeably different? Or did nobody really care?
A: no one cares

Though it seems like nobody cares about players being gay, there was a belief that that was part of the reason Sam was cut from the league, though others disagree. Sam also agrees with Smoot and has said in the past that there are a lot of gay players in the league, they just aren’t publicly open about it.

Smoot’s a pretty interesting cat, so his entire AMA is worth reading. He’s a funny guy (he did coin the “Red Lobster” nickname for Mike Shanahan). We’re just thankful his “Love Boat” scandal didn’t go down during Roger Goodell’s day, otherwise he would have been banished from the league.

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