I haven't been paying much attention to the rest of the NFL this year, and I have literally not had a single piece of info regarding Sam cross my path. The only bits of info I heard regarding him came directly from this board. I heard stuff about Manziel and Gordon, nothing about Sam.
Point being, playing a casual NFL viewer this summer, I was exposed to no extra Sam stories than normal.
This who think he garners extra attention and causes a distraction are likely over exposing themselves to his story. A self fulfilling prophecy, that's called.