Liam Day believes the release of Chris Kluwe by the Minnesota Vikings has less to do with his personal beliefs and more to do with his performance as a player.
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In case you’ve been out of the country the last day and a half, here’s the run down: former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, who made a name for himself sticking up for Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo’s right to advocate for gay marriage, is back in the news for publishing a piece on Deadspin in which he accuses his former team of releasing him due to his outspoken beliefs. Specifically, he calls his former special teams coach Mike Priefer a bigot, and head coach, Leslie Frazier, who was himself just fired, and general manager, Rick Speilman, cowards, presumably for kowtowing to Priefer and going along with his (supposed) request to cut Kluwe.
We covered this topic when Kluwe was first released last spring. At the time, I wrote:
“Kluwe is 31 and was, before being released, earning well above the NFL average for punters. He was also underperforming. His net average per punt was only 17th in the league and he ranked second to last among all punters in the number of punts pinned inside the opponents’ 20-yard line. The Vikings decided to select a punter in the NFL draft – UCLA’s Jeff Locke – who they can sign for considerably less money. From both a football and financial perspective, the move makes perfect sense.”
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To his credit, Kluwe admits in his Deadspin piece that there were a number of variables involved in his firing. However, he still believes he was let go for his advocacy. It’s a difficult claim to prove. Though this might not be the right forum to try and do it, let’s break down Kluwe’s argument to see whether we can get at least a little closer to the truth.
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To begin, right now, we have no way to corroborate whether Kluwe’s transcription of the events that unfolded during and then shortly after the 2012 season are true. I don’t have any reason to believe Kluwe is lying. In fact, as he probably stands to lose more than gain in telling his story now, I’m all the more inclined to believe what he says happened happened.
Where his argument begins to breakdown is when he begins to make claims and jump to conclusions beyond the facts he’s outlined. For instance, his intimation that drafting a punter, which the Vikings did in the fifth round of last year’s draft, is a rare occurrence is slightly misleading. In fact, 36 punters have been taken in the draft over the last two decades, two alone in the 2012 draft, one of whom was taken in the third round. It’s quite possible that each of these teams selected the punters with the full intention of starting them the next year, as Kluwe claims, but there is also evidence to suggest that isn’t always true. Teams do sometimes draft punters for, as Kluwe says Speilman called it, competition. We don’t know whether that was the case in Minnesota.
Neither does Kluwe. Yet, he goes on to say that he does not believe Speilman was telling the truth. Belief and knowledge are two very different things. He attempts to buttress his argument by saying that the Vikings had never approached him about reducing his contract for cap-space purposes, thus, he believes, negating the possibility that he was simply cut because he was too expensive. What he either failed to consider or intentionally left out of his piece is that his contract was locked in at the league’s veteran-minimum salary and there was little negotiating to be done. Moreover, as Kluwe was entering the final year of his contract, the Vikings didn’t take a hit under the cap for releasing him. The move to do so, at least financially, made all the sense in the world.
Kluwe also claims that his 2012 averages were roughly in line with his career averages, thus, again he believes, negating the possibility that he was cut due to poor performance. As mentioned above, Kluwe was only 17th in the league in net average per punt and second to last in the number of punts inside the opponents’ 20-yard line. In his article, he further claims that the special teams coach, Priefer, had specifically asked him to shorten his kicks to put more hang time on the ball because the Vikings’ coverage team, in Priefer’s word, sucks. Such a request would clearly impact a punter’s gross average and most likely, though somewhat more negligibly, his net average. Still, it would remain reasonable for the team to make a change when Kluwe was performing at or below the league average while earning well above it.
Furthermore, the implication that Priefer specifically asked Kluwe to dial back on the distance of his kicks so that the coach would later be able to use the reduced distance as data to argue for cutting the punter elevates the story to the realm of conspiracy. And, though there would seem to be enough questionable circumstance surrounding Kluwe’s release, at least based on his own report, conspiracy theories are easily dismissed and peddling one will hardly help Kluwe in the public arena. By the end of his piece we are left to conclude that Mike Priefer, a special teams coach, wields more power than either his head coach or general manager, even, possibly, more than the team’s owner, who Kluwe says congratulated him on his advocacy. Ostensibly, they all went along with Priefer’s desire to cut Kluwe, which would, as the punter pointed out, make them cowards. But of what were they so afraid?
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I don’t buy the conspiracy angle. Chris Kluwe was an older, somewhat expensive, and fairly average punter. That’s why he was released. Now, I don’t doubt that his outspokenness made the team’s decision just a little bit easier. And, if what Kluwe claims is true regarding Mike Priefer’s behavior, then the man’s a dick. The league needs to investigate the allegations and action needs to be taken. And, hopefully, if the allegations are verified, the Minnesota Vikings will think twice before making him their head coach.
I think the story begs to be reported out. I also think it’s a perfect opportunity for the NFL to deomstrate its new commitment to gay rights is genuine by launching a thorough, transparent and unbiased investigation into the allegations raised by Chris Kluwe. But, until either of those things happens, we just won’t know and we’re left wondering—wondering about what really happened to Chris Kluwe, wondering whether NFL locker rooms are really ready to accept openly gay players, wondering whether the league and its member franchises are as skittish about free speech as this story would seem to imply.
I doubt the Patriots would ever cut Tom Brady or the Broncos Peyton Manning for being too outspoken. Chris Kluwe is neither and his price tag and somewhat average performance probably made him more vulnerable. And that is perhaps the story’s most pernicious lesson, that if you’re a marginal player, better to keep your head down and your mouth shut.
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Photo: AP/Jeff Chiu