You have to wonder how many teams already have a gay players in their locker rooms that are open with their teammates but not known about publicly. I would imagine there are a few. For those that think the story would get out, remember that Sam came out to his teammates last year and the story didn't come out until he wanted it to. I think there's a degree of common respect for those boundaries.
It's also worth bringing up that sportswriter Mike Freeman reported last year that three NFL players were planning to come out at the same time (including one apparently "major player" or something) but the plan fell apart. Perhaps we'll see that soon.
Even if you don't care about sports, this is really important. Sports is so important to American culture that events like Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier and Magic Johnson announcing his HIV diagnosis actually matter to how many people see the world. Sports and especially the competitive professional leagues has been an anomaly in terms of homophobia and hopefully this can begin breaking that down.
And, as a gay NFL fan, I hope this encourages more gays to take an interest in the NFL. We only have 3 gay sports bars in NYC and none of them are any good.
Gays can get into the NFL for the same reason that WWE is so popular with them. 
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