Raiders’ Carl Nassib Announces He’s Gay, an N.F.L. First

The Raiders defensive lineman came out in a statement posted to his Instagram account on Monday, becoming the first active player in the league to publicly identify as gay.

On Monday, Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib became the first active N.F.L. player to publicly declare that he is gay. “I just want to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay,” Nassib said in a video posted to his Instagram account. “Sadly, I have agonized over this moment for the last 15 years,” he wrote in the same post. Nassib, a five-year N.F.L. veteran who previously played with the Cleveland Browns and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said he was finally “comfortable getting it off my chest.”