Three Reasons Why The Vikings Drafted A Punter...

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ABM

ABM

Happily Married In Music City, USA!
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The Vikings may very well have drafted a punter because they're planning to cut or trade Kluwe.

In fact, they may even be planning to cut or trade Kluwe because of his outspokenness on gay rights/issues.

However, they may even be planning to cut or trade Kluwe, not necessarily because of his outspokenness on the subject, but because of his seeming over-the-top, potentially strident attitude overall....which may very well have been objectionable in management's eyes.:dunno:

I used to work in the corporate world and, while I had great freedoms, I still had obligations (some unwritten) to carry myself in a respectful manner as not to diminish/jeopardize the company brand as a whole.

I have my suspicions that it's not what Kluwe is doing/representing, so much as how he is carrying out the so-called message.
 
3HeOYuX.png
 
PS: Kluwe is married.....with children, just in case you were wondering.

kluwefamily.jpg
 
ABM said:
PS: Kluwe is married.....with children, just in case you were wondering.

kluwefamily.jpg
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Why would we wonder? You wouldn't be implying that some people could think he is gay are you?
 
So anyone that stands up for gay people/rights are secretly teh gay too?
 
KeepOnRollin said:
I personally wouldn't think it but I am thinking you might think that way. You can correct me if I am wrong however.
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I'm thinking it's probably a bit rare that a straight person would become such an (high profile and even employment-risking[?]) advocate for the LGBT community.

jus sayin' :cheers:
 
ABM said:
I'm thinking it's probably a bit rare that a straight person would become such an (high profile and even employment-risking[?]) advocate for the LGBT community.

jus sayin' :cheers:
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I don't see the issue. You think it is rare and that maybe true but it isn't like it never happens. He isn't the only one who campaigns for equal rights. A lot of straight people equate it to the civil rights movement. I don't think he thought it would be employment-risking when he did it at the time but that isn't going to change his views now.
 
KeepOnRollin said:
I don't see the issue.
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Never once did I say it was (nor is) an "issue". Other than the fact that, in light of the resulting circumstances, he "may" have become a bit overzealous in his campaign. Maybe not, though. I suppose time will be the ultimate judge.

It's all good, though, brah. :)
 
I think this is downright despicable of the vikings. Drafting his replacement in the fifth is about as clear of a middle finger as you can give this guy even though all he did was advocate for one side of a very controversial issue.

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Rhal said:
I think this is downright despicable of the vikings. Drafting his replacement in the fifth is about as clear of a middle finger as you can give this guy even though all he did was advocate for one side of a very controversial issue.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
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Never underestimate the so-called power of the "Bachmann belt" as it pertains to Vikings Stadium legislative votes.
 
Some people say 3 points aren't as good as 6, but I say they're only half-right.
 
Good ol' ABC, Disneyworld, and the like...

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-gr...ams-failed-draft-openly-gay-kicker-they-promo

ABC's Lobbying Failed: NFL Teams Failed to Draft the Openly Gay Kicker They Promoted

Josh Elliott, ABC’s news anchor at Good Morning America, is heartbroken. The NFL has failed his political correctness test and failed to draft openly gay kicker Alan Gendreau of Middle Tennessee State. Then again, only two kickers were drafted, ruining what Elliott hoped “could be a watershed moment.”

In a typically one-sided Friday morning story pushing Gendreau as a barrier-breaker, Elliott – who goes to gay-left dinners and boasts of ABC's record of "advocacy journalism" for the Left – insisted emphatically, “There is a barrier that is ready to be broken.” Robin Roberts suggested kickers are rarely drafted. Elliott shot back: “Again, I think the time is now.” John Schriffen had the story:

JOHN SCHRIFFEN: It really could be Alan Gendreau doesn't like to think of himself in terms of his sexuality. He thinks of himself as a great kicker. But if he's drafted into the national football league later today, he would be one of only 1700 players to be public out of the closet....

It’s arguably the most exciting weekend for any hopeful future NFL’er. As the clock ticks...Alan Gendreau waits to see when and if his name will be called. You think now is the right time?

ALAN GENDREAU: It's a great time.

SCHRIFFEN: What's so special about the kicker from middle Tennessee State, aside from his 295 points he scored in college, he's the first openly gay player to enter the NFL draft.

GENDREAU: My personal belief is that God made me this way. I didn't choose it.

SCHRIFFEN: Gendreau who has been openly gay since he was 15, wants to be the first out player in the NFL. This is groundbreaking territory for a player in this testosterone-fueled sport, often accused of making homosexuality taboo. In February, the 49ers Chris Culliver was forced to apologize after suggesting he wouldn't support a gay teammate.

CHRIS CULLIVER: We ain't got no gay people on the team. They gotta get up outta here if they do.

MIKE GREENBERG, Co-host Mike and Mike, ESPN Radio: Several of your players have come out in support of gay marriage.

SCHRIFFEN: On ESPN radio on Thursday, the league's commissioner spoke out about Gendreau -- his first public comments about the NFL’s evolving stance on gays.

GOODELL: We'd be incredibly supportive of this, And not to the point of tolerance, but the point of acceptance.

ADAM SCHEFTER, ESPN NFL Insider: If the NFL believes that society is open to this type of arrangement, then the NFL is going to adopt that stance, as long as it does not cost the league popularity.

SCHRIFFEN: Gendreau's not interested in becoming popular or breaking barriers. He just wants a chance to play on the gridiron. [To Gendreau] Being the first, do you think it comes with pressure?

GENDREAU: Sure, I mean, sure. There's always pressure being the first in anything. At the end of the day, it's about football. And it's about winning games.

SCHIRFFEN: And back in college, Gendreau said his teammates treated him like any other player. He hopes when he gets to the NFL, he'll have the same acceptance in the locker room. He's confident that will happen.

Perhaps next, the NFL can add compensatory draft picks designed especially to please ABC and its allies in the LGBT lobby. "Inclusion picks"?

Ironically, the Minnesota Vikings drafted a punter in the fifth round on Saturday, suggesting a possible end to the career of Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, an incredibly obnoxious gay-Left advocate in the last year. (Who can forget his "lustful cockmonster" prose?) Kluwe will be grand marshal of this year's "gay pride" parade in the Twin Cities.
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It has to be largely based on his stance. The guy is one of the top (I should say top half not top 5 or anything) punters in the league (I have seen the numbers that say otherwise but he was instructed to let a lot of the air off his kicks). As he said, the other guys in his class (of talent) are getting extensions and he is getting the chopping block. You add it up.
 
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfl--c...e-talk-is-not-tolerable-in-nfl-204848762.html

The great threat to the fabric of football did not brandish an arsenal of guns when I met Chris Kluwe in his living room in the fall of 2011. He didn't swill whiskey as we drove to his band's practice. Nor did he store PEDs in his refrigerator, instead opting for piles of fruit and a carton of milk. His television was off as it often is because – gasp – Kluwe likes to read.

All of which makes the Minnesota Vikings' release of Kluwe on Monday more perplexing. For eight years, Kluwe was the team's punter. In fact he had been a very effective punter, deadening his kicks as if his leg was a 9-iron. He was a sure-handed holder on field goals and extra points, invisible in the way you want your holder to be. And given the trouble teams have in finding gifted punters and dependable holders, it seemed he would remain the Vikings' punter for a long, long time.

But the NFL doesn't always respect reliable players who are role models off the field. Not when those players are smart and have opinions and dare to speak those opinions on places like the Internet. In the past year, Kluwe's activism has gone from complaints about labor issues to the third rail to sports executives: gay rights. Suddenly the skilled punter who tees the ball perfectly for his field goal kickers is the great threat to the fabric of football.

Of course the Vikings, who drafted a punter in last month's NFL draft, didn't tell him this as they cut him Monday. Instead they gave the usual speech about wanting to go a different direction, thanking him for his service. Then he was dispatched from the Vikings' facility without even a helmet clock to show for his eight years with the team.

Kluwe never asked if it was his activism that cost him his job. The Vikings never offered the thought even as the answer loomed obvious to everyone else. Two football players have spoken loud for gay rights issues in the last several months, specifically gay marriage: Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo. Both have been cut. And while you could argue Ayanbadejo was a financial casualty for a team desperate to get under the salary cap, Kluwe was a modest budget strain to the Vikings; he was scheduled to make $1.45 million in 2013. What happened to him makes little sense. Except it makes lots of sense.

"I don't know if I'll ever know," he said by phone on Monday after his meetings with general manager Rick Spielman and coach Leslie Frazier. "I'm not in the [organizational] meetings."

There is an idea in football that punters should be seen and not heard. Football coaches are men who were raised as linemen and linebackers and running backs. They come from a world where the punter is an annual story in the local newspaper and not an Internet sensation doing photo shoots for Out Magazine. They despise controversy.

As he pondered his release, Kluwe seemed to understand he is somehow now the great threat to the fabric of football. Yet he also wondered why principles are vices. Aren't you supposed to speak against wrongs? The reaction to the gay-marriage issue always seemed strange to him. Football players aren't sitting in locker rooms worrying who among them might be gay.

"Just as someone isn't going to ask me about what I did with my wife last night I'm not going to ask someone what he did with his husband," Kluwe said.

He paused.

"When I'm in the locker room and around the team, I'm 100 percent football," he said. "I've always been very fair with my tweets. I never say anything to denigrate the team."

Still, the Vikings seemed threatened by Kluwe over the past couple of years. Where coaches once praised his ability for "coverable" punts that put opponents in bad field position, they grumbled about him last season. If there was a last straw it was when he went out onto the field wearing a "Post-it" that read "Vote Ray Guy," just days after a Yahoo! Sports story about the former Raiders punter's quest to get in the Hall of Fame.
"Those distractions are getting old for me to be honest," Vikings special teams coach Mike Priefer told reporters at the time.
Kluwe said Monday no one from the team complained to him about the Ray Guy sign, just as no coach or executive ever told him to back off his Internet crusades. Basically, he said, they left him alone and let him punt. He gave the Vikings another fine season: dropping 25 percent of his kicks inside the 20-yard line with only two touchbacks and a career-best 39.7 yard net punting average.

But because he is now the great threat to the social fabric of the NFL he was cut.

No sports organization offers more contradictions than the NFL. This is a league that deemed its players' off-field behavior a crisis in 2007, fearing advertisers might flee a sport with rising arrest records, that it created a strict player conduct policy. Yet when confronted with a skilled player coming off his best season who defends gay marriage on Twitter, the ax comes out.............
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