Former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe was never afraid to speak his mind while playing in the NFL and now a new article on Deadspin from the special teams player says that may have been the reason he was fired, as he called his position coach Mike Priefer a bigot for making homophobic comments and called head coach Leslie Frazier a coward for not supporting him.
Kluwe was one of a handful of NFL players to support gay right and gay marriage vocally and after he was released by the team, many thought that it was due to his outspokenness, but of course the Vikings denied that. In fact, the Vikings covered their tracks very well, as they drafted a punter in the NFL draft to easily and justifiably say that they were going "younger" at the position. Yes, detractors, Kluwe's stats the previous season were not at the top of the list for punters, but looking back on 2013, the man that was drafted, Jeff Locke, had worse numbers than Kluwe, so yeah.
Kluwe took to Deadspin, as he has in the past, two write about the situation surrounding his firing and he took the opportunity to finally shed some light on the situation, as he said at the time that he thought it had to do with performance and that's what he was told, but he can't be for sure, since he is "not in the meetings" with the coaches and executives. Kluwe, according to the article in Deadspin, said that his position coach Mike Priefer, spoke to him in a homophobic way and said things like: "Priefer also said on multiple occasions that I would wind up burning in hell with the gays."
Kluwe called out head coach Leslie Frazier and Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman as cowards for not supporting him expressing his views and that Spielman told him to "fly under the radar" and that Frazier told him to quiet down as well, but changed his tune when the Vikings owner said he supported Kluwe making a stand.
Either way, the Vikings will deny this and they have Jeff Locke to show for it, but them pointing to Locke is exactly why their argument stinks. Kluwe was a solid punter for the team for nearly a decade and while his numbers were not great in his final season with the team, they were not in the bottom of the league and he easily had another year with his leg and while Locke is a solid young prospect, he was basically used to have a justified reason to ditch Kluwe and most people saw that when it happened.
Whatever your opinion is on the subject, and I'm sure some of you out there are very enlightened, Kluwe did not deserved to be fired for it and while some will rail against him for saying these things, he deserves to be applauded, because why at this point would Kluwe lie about what his coach said to him? Read it for yourself and decide.
