Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib is the first active NFL player to publicly come out as gay. But we know there have always been gay players in the league.
In fact, NFL Hall of Fame defensive end Bruce Smith says he played with, at least, one gay teammate on the Buffalo Bills in the 1990s. His sexuality was never an issue.
“We had a gay player in our locker room,” Smith told TMZ. “I think it was the mid- to late-90s, and I think we might have had two. But that wasn’t what we were focused on. We were focused on winning games. And each and every person that was in that locker room was contributing to the goal at hand, which was winning football games. None of that other stuff mattered. This was about winning football games and trying to be a good person.”
Those Bills teams won a lot of games, playing in four-straight Super Bowls from the 1990 to 1993 season. Clearly, playing with a gay teammate wasn’t a distraction 30 years ago.
So there’s no reason to think it will be now.
The NFL world has embraced Nassib since he came out, with the NFL even matching his $100,000 donation to The Trevor Project, the nation’s leading suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ youth.
On Monday, the league released a special Pride video, saying that football is "gay, lesbian, queer, transgender and beautiful." An NFL spokesperson told Outsports the video was produced as a direct response to Nassib’s big announcement.