NFL teams want to find out about Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's sexual orientation, NBC Sports' Mike Florio said on Dan Patrick's radio show Monday. 
 
 "They just want to know," Florio said. "They want to know because in an NFL locker room, it's a different world. It shouldn't be that way." 
 
 Te'o only recently overcame the embarrassment of the public exposure brought when it was revealed in January that he was fooled by a male acquaintance into believing he was dating a woman he genuinely loved. 
 
 Te'o is projected to be a first-round pick and is the second-ranked inside linebacker in the draft by NFLDraftScout.com. 
 
 Teams are also digging into the reasons why he was erased so easily by Alabama's prospect-heavy offensive line in the national championship game. 
 
 "On the field, you still have to account for what happened in the BCS national championship game against Alabama," Florio said. 
 
 Florio said teams are likely not asking Te'o directly about his sexual orientation because the inquiries could get leaked to the public, much like when Miami Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland asked then-Oklahoma State wide receiver Dez Bryant (now with the Dallas Cowboys) if his mother was a prostitute in 2010. 
 
 "I don't think you can ask that question -- because of the Dez Bryant question of a few years ago," Florio said. "If you go Katie Couric on Manti Te'o, it's going to come out that some team, some GM, some coach asked Manti Te'o if he's gay. Then you'll have to deal with all the distraction and all the stuff that flows after that." 
 
 Patrick asked Florio if teams are finding a more finesse way of asking Te'o if he is gay or if they are just doing investigative work behind the scenes. 
 
 "It's been described to me as the proverbial elephant in the room and I don't think anyone knows how to solve this dilemma yet," Florio said. "It's just that they want to know what they're getting. They want to know what issues they may be dealing with down the road. We just assumed that at some point there would be an openly gay player in an NFL locker room and the team would have to work with the realities and make sure that everything's fine. 
 
 "Now you have a situation where you have a guy who was in a relationship with a fake girl who ended up being a real man, and the man has said to Dr. Phil that he was romantically in love with Manti Te'o, it just raises a lot of questions that the NFL at some point is going to have to deal with." 
 
 Florio said former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy (now an NBC Sports analyst) told him that "if the NFL were ready for an openly gay player, there would be an openly gay player." 
 
 It is not clear if Te'o's draft status will be affected by the hoax. 
 
 "I'm not saying anyone would take Manti Te'o off the board if they suspected he's gay or know he's gay," Florio said. "That's just the thing that's out there that they want to know the answer to." 

 Former Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o speaks to the news media during the 2013 NFL scouting combine Feb. 23 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (Photo: Joe Robbins, Getty Images) 
 
 In light of the Manti Te'o situation, the questions at the NFL scouting combine during player interviews over the weekend appear to have touched on some subjects that aren't supposed to come up in job interviews — namely, sexual orientation. 
 
 BRENNAN: NFL teams out of bounds 
 
 The NFL Players Association is aware of those rumblings — and Colorado tight end Nick Kasa's contention that he was asked if he's a heterosexual — and the union wants the league to investigate whether, and to what extent, it occurred. 
 
 "I know that the NFL agrees that these types of questions violate the law, our CBA and player rights," NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday. "I hope that they will seek out information as to what teams have engaged in this type of discrimination and we should then discuss appropriate discipline." 
 
 The NFL appears ready to comply. 
 
 MOCK DRAFT: Who will go in first round? 
 
 "Like all employers, our teams are expected to follow applicable federal, state and local employment laws. It is league policy to neither consider nor inquire about sexual orientation in the hiring process," league spokesman Greg Aiello wrote in an e-mail to USA TODAY Sports. "In addition, there are specific protections in our collective bargaining agreement with the players that prohibit discrimination against any player, including on the basis of sexual orientation. 
 
 "We will look into the report on the questioning of Nick Kasa at the scouting combine. Any team or employee that inquires about impermissible subjects or makes an employment decision based on such factors is subject to league discipline." 
 
 There was a report from ProFootballTalk.com's Mike Florio, speaking on The Dan Patrick Show, saying the "elephant in the room" was teams' desire to know if Te'o was gay and if his relationship with Lennay Kekua, who didn't exist, was some form of cover-up for his sexuality. 
 
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 Florio did not state a team asked Te'o if he was gay. Kasa said he was asked the opposite. 
 
 "They ask you like, 'Do you have a girlfriend? Are you married? Do you like girls?' " Kasa said in an interview with ESPN Radio Denver, per ProFootballTalk.com. "Those kinds of things, and you know it was just kind of weird. But they would ask you with a straight face, and it's a pretty weird experience altogether." 
 
 Jeff Foster, the National Football Scouting president who runs the combine, said no team, player or agent has said to him that an inappropriate question was asked during the private interview sessions, which are conducted solely by the team. Foster and his staff only set up those interviews. 
 
 CLOSE For the NFL's Scouting Combine, sexuality questions become a topic of discussion. VPC 
 
 The combine staff conducts videotaped interviews that last about 10 minutes and are distributed to teams, who are permitted 60 private interviews. Those questions, Foster said, "have all been reviewed by legal and human resources to make sure they're in compliance" with legal guidelines. 
 
 "The 32 NFL teams are professional organizations. At this point, I certainly don't feel we need to remind them they need to act as such. I've got no sense of that," Foster said. "I think it's probably like a lot of things that come out of the combine — more rumor and innuendo than fact. 
 
 "Now, if we found out there was in fact something that was inappropriate, we would address that individually to make sure we understand what's happening and make sure we were all on the same page. But at this point, we don't see that as being necessary." 
 
 PHOTOS: QBs at the combine
– The NFL promises to investigate claims by at least one NFL prospect that teams asked about players' sexuality during interviews at this week's scouting combine, reports USA Today. "Like all employers, our teams are expected to follow applicable federal, state and local employment laws," says a league spokesman, responding to the brouhaha that erupted when Colorado's Nick Kasa told a radio show that he was asked questions such as, "Do you like girls?" "They would ask you with a straight face, and it's a pretty weird experience altogether," Kasa told ESPN Radio Denver. His comments came after NBC's Mike Florio said on a different radio show that teams were trying to figure out whether Manti Te'o was gay in the wake of the bizarre fake-girlfriend hoax. "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," said Florio, reports Yahoo Sports. "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." (But it is apparently, as the Chris Culliver flap around the Super Bowl made clear.)