Manti Te’o Gay: Teams At NFL Combine Want To Know If Notre Dame Linebacker Is In The Closet

Is Manti Te’o gay? That is the question many NFL teams are reportedly trying to ask as they look into the Notre Dame linebacker at this year’s pre-draft combine.

The draft stock of the linebacker has been somewhat of a wild card. After a stellar season, Te’o failed to show up in the BCS Championship Game, being run over by Alabama running backs. Then came the revelation that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua, who reportedly died of leukemia during the season, was all part of an elaborate hoax played on Te’o.

While this may raise questions of his emotional character, NFL teams also seem very concerned about whether Manti Te’o is gay.

“On the field, you still have to account for what happened in the BCS National Championship Game against Alabama,” NBC Sports writer Mike Florio told the Dan Patrick Show. “Here’s the elephant in the room for the teams and it shouldn’t matter, but we have to step aside from the rest of reality and walk into the unique industry that is the NFL. Teams want to know whether Manti Te’o is gay. They just want to know. They want to know because in an NFL locker room, it’s a different world. It shouldn’t be that way.”

It is difficult for NFL general managers to ask those questions directly, CBS Sports noted. A few years ago Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland asked wide receiver Dez Bryant if his mother was a prostitute (after Bryant said his mother worked for his father, who was a pimp), and got a strong backlash for it.

There are still conflicting reports of whether the Lennay Kekua hoax will hurt Te’o in the draft, with the Chicago Tribune reporting that general managers don’t seem too interested in going into that subject with the linebacker.

Do you think it should matter if Manti Te’o is gay or not?