Though the first chapter of Michael Sam’s NFL story lasted just a summer, ending Saturday when he failed to make the St. Louis Rams’ 53-man roster at the end of training camp, his very arrival as the league’s first openly gay player made an impact.

Wade Davis, a former NFL player who came out after his playing career ended, told USA TODAY Sports Saturday night that the he’s seen significant changes in how gay players are viewed in the past few months, a credit to both Sam and the Rams.

“When history looks back, there will be a couple different people in this LGBT sports movement, Michael Sam will be at the top.

He showed up not trying to be a civil rights advocate. He was just being himself, trying to play the sport that he loved,” Davis said. “Michael Sam was the perfect individual, at the perfect time, with the perfect message – I’m a football player who also happens to be gay.”

Davis, the executive director of the You Can Play Project, has been working closely with the NFL to advance awareness for LGBT issues for months. He gave a formal presentation to league owners, general managers and head coaches at the NFL meetings in Orlando in March, and has traveled to various NFL cities to meet with teams throughout the offseason.

He also spent time with Sam as Sam decided to announce his sexuality to the NFL world – news he had shared months earlier with his teammates at the University of Missouri. So when Rams head coach Jeff Fisher made the announcement Saturday that Sam did not make the Rams’ roster, Davis was watching.

The move was fair, and what Davis had been expecting.

“It’s important that [Fisher] talked about how Michael got better and can play in this league,” Davis said. “It wasn’t about Michael Sam’s sexuality. And it was also important that Fisher mentioned that [Sam] wasn’t a distraction.”

Indeed, that was what Davis hopes the NFL and its massive fan base learned from the first step of Sam’s NFL career. The Rams functioned just fine in the months since Sam’s arrival. He was not a spectacle, he did not alienate teammates. He was just another rookie, just trying to figure out how to play in the NFL, just fighting for a job.

“The NFL is not a space where gay individuals can’t thrive in. The Rams, with great leadership from top down, showed players can adjust to all sorts of things. They got see Michael Sam as a human being, not just as a gay man,” Davis said. “The other big take away, a team can be successful with a gay player. There is not a rift.”

Sam will learn Sunday if another team had claimed him off waivers, or if he becomes a free agent, looking to find a spot on a team’s practice squad.