Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and current Las Vegas Raiders edge rusher and Carl Nassib has made history becoming the first active NFL player to come out as gay.
Nassib took to his Instagram page to make the video announcement, while ESPN’s Adam Schefter took to Twitter to share the news. Nassib also announced that he will be donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention program for LBGTQIA youth. The announcement has sent waves throughout the sports world, and the world as a whole, as a new chapter in the LBGTQIA community has started being written.
Raiders DL Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player to announce he is gay. “What’s up people,” Nassib posted on IG. “I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now but finally feel comfortable getting it off my chest.”
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 21, 2021
Nassib, who was the third-round pick of the Cleveland Browns back in 2016, joined the Raiders as a free agent before the 2020 NFL season. In between there, he was a member of the Buccaneers during the 2018 and 2019 seasons. That being the case, he just missed out on making history as a Super Bowl champion. Fortunately, Nassib was able to make history another way.
While there have been instances of former NFL players coming out after retirement and keeping their homosexuality a secret during their playing days, and the case of Michael Sam who was the first gay man ever drafted when the Rams made him their seventh-round selection 2014, but he never actually played a down in a regular season NFL game. Nassib becomes the first active NFL player to come out and announce his homosexuality while still playing.
Nassib fittingly decided to make his announcement during the month of June, which has become Pride Month for the LBGTQIA community.
Nassib appeared in 29 games for the Bucs while starting in 17. In that time, he registered 63 tackles with 12.5 sacks while breaking up two passes and forcing two fumbles, recovering one. That is still fantastic production for that amount of playing time, and Nassib was a solid player with the Buccaneers and is still a part of the family.
We here at the Pewter Plank applaud his announcement and wish him nothing but the best on his journey. No doubt history has been made, and time will tell if more will follow in the footsteps of Carl Nassib.