ST. LOUIS -- Remember Eric Waters, the Mizzou tight end who had roomed with Michael Sam and, the day after it was revealed publicly that Sam was gay, tweeted that many of those Tigers patting Sam on the back were, for all intents and purposes, hypocrites?
Now he's saying Michael Sam isn't the same guy he roomed with at Mizzou.
"He is a nice guy, but I will say the truth: A little bit of him has changed," Waters told the Pittsburgh Tribune. "It is really not my situation to speculate at this point, but he is not the same Michael Sam anymore."
Waters is an undrafted rookie signed to a free-agent deal by Pittsburgh, a bottom-of-the-roster guy trying to stick with the Steelers. In that respect, he's a lot like Sam, who was drafted in the seventh round by the Rams and is trying to win a job at defensive end on a highly talented and overstocked St. Louis D-line.
"I don't know if that is because he is more focused on the fame and the opportunity he has now or whatever," Waters told the Tribune.
"I was watching the NFL Network the other day," he said, "and I think it was Marshall Faulk who said that he keeps referring to himself in the third person as Michael Sam this, Michael Sam that. That's not the same guy we knew back when we were living together. He is not the same fun-loving, joking guy that really didn't care about stuff like publicity."
