On Thursday, Michael Sam was a defensive end for the St. Louis Rams; on Saturday, he was waived from their roster; and on Sunday, Sam went unclaimed on the waiver wire. He is currently an unemployed football player.

In a vacuum, Sam is ordinary, considering there are only 1,696 men who are, at one moment, employed players by teams in the NFL. Most of us, including this poorly-coordinated writer, are not football players in the National Football League, and now Sam, by virtue of losing his job, is one of us. In a vacuum.

But Sam is not ordinary. Sam is one-of-a-kind, the media tells us. He is a role model, a trailblazer and a beacon for equal rights in the professional workplace, the media implores us to understand. 

Sam was the first openly gay man to ever be drafted by a team into the NFL when the Rams picked him up in the seventh round this past April; but you know that. A former stud at Missouri, Sam was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Year in his senior year, recording 11.5 sacks and 19 tackles for loss along the way. Though it wasn’t until one of the best college pass rushers in the country became "the other" that people started to recognize his name.

After his announcement, Sam was no longer just a football player. He was the gay football player, an icon by virtue of uniqueness.

The sports media treats icons much differently than bit players. Entire broadcasts and advertising campaigns are built around faces. Ask Peyton Manning, or LeBron James, or Derek Jeter. Those three, a holy triumvirate of sports giants, are internationally recognizable and marketable names because they win in style and do so repeatedly.

Call the SEC Defensive Player of the Year a honorable prize if you wish, but Sam hadn’t really won anything on his road to iconography besides the sway of public opinion. No championships or Heisman-worthy displays to show for his stardom. Instead, he demanded attention because he was, at a basic and unprofessional level, different than his peers.

But for media organizations, a mass audience of supportive - or combative - fans is a cash cow that can’t be ignored, and cows need to be fed. 

So, ESPN bought the rights to Michael Sam. You won’t find a contract or legal documents confirming this - I don’t have Schefter’s sources - but the sports media behemoth has more or less owned his property and acted as his PR rep since the get-go. The day after Sam came out to the world, ESPN had the exclusive interview with him. The week of the NFL Combine, his poor display dominated the headlines in the stead of more “news-worthy” items, like what Johnny Manziel received on the Wonderlic and who ran the fastest 40-yard three-cone bench press. 

The Worldwide Leader stuck a camera in Sam’s living room for the last two days of this year’s NFL Draft too, as he, his partner and his family eagerly awaited his name to be called for seven rounds. (Usually this treatment is reserved for notable first- and second-round picks who prefer the privacy of their home to the media orgy at Radio City Music Hall.) And when Sam was finally selected as the 249th pick, he and his partner shared a kiss - and a little too much cake - as a fascinated sports nation cheered and cursed, but didn’t change the channel. 

At this year’s ESPYs, the self-aggrandizing, unnecessary sports award show that ESPN broadcasts every summer when there’s nothing else on cable, Sam received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Notably nervous, he gave an inspirational, but stuttered speech about his road to that stage, juxtaposing heart-wrenching stories about inspiring gay teens with apologies for his poor eloquence. As important as Sam’s speech is and will be in the future landscape of equality in sports, it was clear at that moment that ESPN was moving faster than Sam to push his story. 

Before Sam had even put on his pads for the St. Louis Rams, he was under the scrutiny of millions of viewers. His potential success would not just be his own, but also shared with ESPN, the bearer of popular news and inspirational underdog tales. 

It brought to mind the not-so-forgotten treatment of Tim Tebow, the legendary Heisman-winning quarterback out of Florida who captivated the nation with his unorthodox style of play and his orthodox religious associations. After he won the starting quarterback job in Denver and delivered a few moments that could only be described as God-induced miracles (yes, to beat the Jets is oddly enough considered miraculous), middle America and ESPN jumped on the Tebow bandwagon. The network crafted hours of unmerited coverage (ahem, First Take) around the chosen signal-caller and reaped the rating benefits for it. 

An unbroken formula, ESPN continued to cover Tebow when he was a backup scrub for the Jets and Patriots, manipulating viewers into thinking the man was still a significant player in the league despite his physical shortcomings. This effectively dissuaded teams to sign him; by then, he was more media fodder than underperforming quarterback. After his release from the Pats last season, Tebow left the spotlight for a while - he even worked out at USC a few times - but was primed to make his own second coming. And he did.

You can see Tebow on your television sets and mobile devices every Saturday morning on SEC Nation, a show developed by none other than ESPN.

ESPN built Tebow, destroyed Tebow and now owns Tebow.

Who’s to say, given the parallels, the Worldwide Leader won’t do the same with Sam?

The network’s coverage of Sam’s showering habits with the Rams may have been a step (or ten) too far in the over analysis of the affect of Sam’s sexual orientation on his professional status. But it was indicative of what ESPN had been trying to do all along: capitalize on a social issue and remodel it as a sports talking point. 

None of us are in the Rams’ front office, or any team’s for that matter, so we don’t know why Sam was cut and subsequently left off the practice squad. Ironically, it’s unfortunate that the team that drafted him already had one of the deepest front sevens in all of football and didn’t really need him. 

Regardless, the real trouble starts now for Sam’s camp and ESPN. Now that the Missouri man has “had his chance”, will NFL teams willingly sign him, pay him and promote him as one of their own, especially if they don’t think he’s athletically qualified? After a failed stint in the NFL, should Sam still garner the media attention ESPN gives him? Has he already spent his sixty seconds in the sun?

In a vacuum, Michael Sam is an ordinary unemployed football player, but ESPN is full of hot air. As long as the network's obsessive, poorly-focused coverage persists, Sam will be without a job in the NFL.

Truth be told, the next time you will see him may well be on ESPN, but instead he'll be placed behind the sports desk with fellow pawn Tim Tebow, the two of them recounting the days when they were respected for their game in lieu of their fame. 

Reach Sports Director Jeremy Bergman via e-mail or on Twitter.