At the NFL's rookie scouting combine, just about anything is possible. And that's not really a good thing. Well, it's not necessarily a bad thing either - it's just that when anything is possible, people sometimes tend to take things too far. So when NFL coaches are asked to interview prospective draft selections who, in a matter of a few short months will go from unpaid, underfed college star to million dollar professional athlete, they're going to do everything they can to push that player's - a player like Ohio State's Eli Apple, for instance - buttons.
They're going to try and get under Apple's skin, to test his boundaries and see how he reacts. And usually, the questions asked of a guy like Apple are fairly innocuous, strange though they may be. But every now and then a question comes out that is not only surprising, but altogether distasteful.
"The Falcons coach, one of the coaches, was like, 'So do you like men?' It was like the first thing he asked me," Apple said recently. "It was weird. I was just like, 'no.' He was like, 'if you're going to come to Atlanta, sometimes that's how it is around here, you're going to have to get used to it.' I guess he was joking but they just ask most of these questions to see how you're going to react."
There you have it Atlanta Falcons fans - your coaches are about as enlightened as Donald Trump at a...well they're about as enlightened as Donald Trump.
To his credit, Falcons head coach Dan Quinn addressed the matter quickly, condemning the nature of the question via a statement released by the team.
"I am really disappointed in the question that was asked by one of our coaches," Quinn said. "I have spoken to the coach that interviewed Eli Apple and explained to him how inappropriate and unprofessional this was. I have reiterated this to the entire coaching staff and I want to apologize to Eli for this even coming up. This is not what the Atlanta Falcons are about and it is not how we are going to conduct ourselves."
Unfortunately for Quinn, there's not really any putting the cat back in the bag on this one. And since this came on the heels of a report of Falcons defensive line coach Bryan Cox shoving a Cardinals scout, there may be deeper issues at play here for Quinn and the NFL's Atlanta-based franchise.
Then again, there isn't likely to be much, if anything, in the way of tangible repercussions for the unnamed coach in question. He got a talking to and the media firestorm that results will probably look something more like a small brushfire. The NFL will "look into" whoever asked the question, but it seems unlikely they'd fire someone and put a face to what is an anonymous story.
And really, is asking a player if they're interested in same-sex relationships any worse than a coach asking a combine prospect if they're attracted to their mother?
Yes. Maybe. We don't know.
