Nuke the Vikings

[DaveW]

What a joke this franchise is. They need to clean house top to bottom.

[TheLeviathan]

I would've felt better had Spielman been fired as well. He's a pretty solid drafter, but I don't think there is any question the QB issues are 100% on him.

 

He totally blew that.

[Mike Sixel]

He really made one choice onQB though......you don't kill Ponders career before this year.......I say he gets one more shot. But if the ST coach said what Kluwe alleges, that is bd for him. And Henderson is clearly an idiot whose time has come.

[DaveW]

Priefer is certainly on the way out, Spielman should follow his bigoted ass out the door as well.

[TheLeviathan]

He really made one choice onQB though......you don't kill Ponders career before this year.......I say he gets one more shot. But if the ST coach said what Kluwe alleges, that is bd for him. And Henderson is clearly an idiot whose time has come.

 

I don't doubt Kluwe is mostly on point, but his blog/article/whatever doesn't benefit anything. If you agree with his stance in general you probably sympathize, if you don't it probably comes off as self-serving and unnecessary. I took it as being pretty irrelevant.

 

As for this - he used the 12th pick in a draft where we could have selected Fairley, Quinn, or many other options and he spent it on a guy that many of us spotted from day one wasn't going to be a franchise quarterback.

 

Like it or not, that one decision to hitch the team's wagon to him for 3 years should be a fire-able offense. It's ridiculous Frazier took the blame considering I thought he did fairly well with what he was given. (Though I don't disagree with the firing either)

[one_eyed_jack]

I wasn't crazy about the Frazier firing. He hasn't been great, some curious coaching decisions and dubious coordinator choices, but he certainly wasn't terrible. A few calls/plays/bounces go the Vikes way and they would have been in the playoffs. This despite terrible play at QB and the defensive secondary, which are the last two places you want to see terrible play. The guys continued to play hard for Leslie long after they had nothing to play for. Often times you see teams check out in that situation.

 

I have no faith in Spielman. At all. He's too interested trying to prove that he's smarter than everyone else, and too often only ends up outsmarting himself. My prediction: Spielman will identify some obscure candidate that isn't on anyone's radar, convince himself that he sees something there that nobody else does, and hire him. (The Wilfs will like this because he will come cheap). It will be the biggest "WTF?!" moment in Minnesota sports since Kahn passed on Steph Curry to take Jonny Flynn. (Damn, even typing that still hurts.)

 

Then smarmy Rick and his new hire, the assistant tight ends coach from Slippery Rock University or whoever the hell it is, will make a Ponder-esque reach pick of a QB in the first round. After another 2 disastrous seasons, the Wilfs will lose patience and blow the whole thing up.

 

And we'll be right where we are today, minus 2 prime years of AP's career, plus one shiny new stadium.

[edavis0308]

It will be the biggest "WTF?!" moment in Minnesota sports since Kahn passed on Steph Curry to take Jonny Flynn. (Damn, even typing that still hurts.)

 

Not to go off topic, but have you seen that draft class lately? The Wolves couldn't decide which players they wanted that night, and I still don't think they can decide on any of them. I mean, Christ, how many of those guys were either drafted by or have played for the Wolves?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NBA_draft#Draft

 

/rant

[biggentleben]

Not to go off topic, but have you seen that draft class lately? The Wolves couldn't decide which players they wanted that night, and I still don't think they can decide on any of them. I mean, Christ, how many of those guys were either drafted by or have played for the Wolves?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NBA_draft#Draft

 

/rant

 

Worst part is that they've been desperate for a shooter, and Wesley Matthews went undrafted that year. He'd have been the perfect shooter for them.

[Bark's Lounge]

Priefer is certainly on the way out, Spielman should follow his bigoted ass out the door as well.

 

Don't be too sure - with the way things have gone for the Vikings in recent history, Priefer will end up being our next head coach.

 

I like Kluwe, he releases his opinions and beliefs into the wild without restraint. He fights for a cause that is easy for me to get behind. At the very least, there has to be some truth to the accusations he made today/yesterday.

 

I never have had much faith in North American Professional Sports to be a spearhead in the beginning stages of social change... at least Chris Kluwe has infected the goliath known as the NFL a little bit.

 

I could not speculate on whether Chris Kluwe's activism cost him millions of dollars or if it cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars... I probably lean towards the former.

 

Either way, I feel strongly that Kluwe made the right decision in speaking his mind the last few years no matter the financial sacrifice, and I hope he will have the platform to continue to do as such.

 

It's not my money lost, but it seems well worth it to me.

[TheLeviathan]

Either way' date=' I feel strongly that Kluwe made the right decision in speaking his mind the last few years no matter the financial sacrifice, and I hope he will have the platform to continue to do as such..[/quote']

 

I am not comfortable making Kluwe a martyr like this. He openly admits to restraint for self-preservation, so he's not this fearless, without restraint advocate you suggest. If he was, this would've came out while he was still employed. I don't begrudge him for not doing it, but he did end up waiting almost a year and until he basically found out he's a replacement level punter whose career is over. Then he unleashed the dogs. There is a lot to this conjecture-filled rant that seems self-serving, not advocating.

 

And this comes from someone who 100% supports his cause and his actions at various times. This? It seemed bitter and pathetic.

[PseudoSABR]

Is Kluwe bombastic, self-righteous and pretentious? Sure. But that, imo, signals the kind of personality that it takes to speak against the good-ole boy club that is the NFL.

[TheLeviathan]

Is Kluwe bombastic, self-righteous and pretentious? Sure. But that, imo, signals the kind of personality that it takes to speak against the good-ole boy club that is the NFL.

 

Is that what he's doing? I think he thinks he's doing that, but is this another example?

 

I'm not so sure. His interview this morning on KFAN was enlightening and made me think even less of these accusations. It's worth a listen. My vibe was this was emotion and bitterness, not a legitimate complaint. More of that kind of embellishing you do when you're frustrated with an employer or ex-employer when you are bitter about how it ended. I can't shake that this motivated him and we aren't getting a fair take.

[Mike Sixel]

If he embellished the quotes, I've lost all respect for him, and Preifer should sue his ass. OTOH, if Preifer said that, then good for Kluwe for saying so, though he should have done it right away.

[TheLeviathan]

If he embellished the quotes, I've lost all respect for him, and Preifer should sue his ass. OTOH, if Preifer said that, then good for Kluwe for saying so, though he should have done it right away.

 

Defamation suits heavily favor the defendant. I'm sure Kluwe is aware of this and it's part of why he's grandstanding and daring Preifer to sue him on public radio.

 

Kluwe also seems to want his cake and eat it too: No, I'm not trying to ruin his career. Just make sure he can't ever work as a coach again. He appears to be a guy that is incapable of understanding how his writing comes off to people.

[PseudoSABR]

Is that what he's doing? I think he thinks he's doing that, but is this another example?

 

I'm not so sure. His interview this morning on KFAN was enlightening and made me think even less of these accusations. It's worth a listen. My vibe was this was emotion and bitterness, not a legitimate complaint. More of that kind of embellishing you do when you're frustrated with an employer or ex-employer when you are bitter about how it ended. I can't shake that this motivated him and we aren't getting a fair take.

I can sift through Kluwe's self-aggrandizement (I doubt his advocacy had much to do with his dismissal or Priefer's comments) and see that there's a legitimate, persistent and probably ubiquitous homophobic environment in the NFL that are fostered by verbal derision. Priefer's supposed comments seem all too believable, and I don't think Kluwe would have to embellish to make a great big stink about homophobia in NFL. Sure he's a bit of a punk for doing this after he's been fired and so has much of the coaching staff, but that doesn't mean he isn't pointing to a legitimate concern.

 

The measured discussions of this issue rarely seems to come from players nor get much publicity. Sure, I'd prefer that, but sometimes the only spokesperson you have is someone whose likely to be a douchbag.

[TheLeviathan]

and see that there's a legitimate, persistent and probably ubiquitous homophobic environment in the NFL that are fostered by verbal derision. .

 

With this I take no issue, I think you and Kluwe are exactly right to resist that environment and push for change. I just don't understand how such a smart guy always takes a tact that forces one to sift through his own BS to get the point. It's gotten lost more often than not.

 

With his platform, willingness to be an outcast, and intelligence....he's done very little other than annoy those he could most directly impact.

[PseudoSABR]

he's done very little other than annoy those he could most directly impact.

Well, there's really no way to determine that.

[TheLeviathan]

Well, there's really no way to determine that.

 

Didn't Kluwe just write a piece basically saying he exasperated the two leaders of his franchise with his antics?

[one_eyed_jack]

Here’s my take on the Kluwe thing:

 

 

• I am completely in agreement with Kluwe’s stance on civil rights issues, but I am with Ben Leber in having a problem with the way he went about this
  
• If Preifer really said what Kluwe claims he said, he’s a disgusting excuse for a human being and had no place being a leader.
  
• My respect for Kluwe has diminished as a result of this. I applauded him for lending his voice in support of civil rights when the marriage amendment vote was still pending. But his actions are not about civil rights or helping achieve equality for the GLBT community or even changing NFL culture. This was about Kluwe being bitter, wanting attention and having an ax to grind against specific individuals.
  
• The “Chris Kluwe – Courageous Civil Rights Crusader” narrative is simply belied by his decision to stay silent in the face of comments like Preifer’s. I can understand him not going public, but by his own admission, he did not raise the issue with Frazier, Speilman or Prefier himself out of fear of losing his job.
  
• And, also by his own admission, he hoped to continue playing with the Vikings. So while he claims that Preifer is a bigot who has no business being a coach, he was more than willing to keep kicking the ball for him while accepting a salary far in excess of what many people will earn in a lifetime. He claims to feel so strongly about Preifer never coaching again, yet he himself was willing to remain silent and let Prefier keep coaching as long as he still got a paycheck.
  
• He had no good answer for when Leber pressed him on why he didn’t say something to Preifer. And Leber talked about how he spoke up to coaches when he felt there was something that needed to be addressed. So I think what we see from that is that Kluwe can talk big about his beliefs on Deadspin and Twitter, but lacks the testicular fortitude to confront someone face-to-face about them. Thus he is in no position to be labeling anyone else a coward.
  
• What we have here the one spouse’s version of why the marriage ended in the wake of an ugly divorce. I don’t think Kluwe is making any of this up, but his account is very self-serving, and I would not be surprised to learn he did and said some pretty prickish things that he conveniently left out of his Deadspin piece.
  
• I would think a lot more of this if Kluwe had at least tried to engage in some self-reflection or put himself in say, Frazier’s position. Frazier’s job was to win football games, not to enable his punter’s off the field activity choices.
  
• There are legitimate football/business reasons why Kluwe doesn’t have an NFL job. He was on the decline. There were younger, cheaper guys available. When teams can get a younger, healthier punter or kicker who is 90% as good as the incumbent veteran for less than half the cost, they do it. It happens all the time. Kluwe’s situation is hardly unique. His activism stuff may have pushed him, but he was on the edge anyway.
  

[Bark's Lounge]

I am not comfortable making Kluwe a martyr like this. He openly admits to restraint for self-preservation, so he's not this fearless, without restraint advocate you suggest. If he was, this would've came out while he was still employed. I don't begrudge him for not doing it, but he did end up waiting almost a year and until he basically found out he's a replacement level punter whose career is over. Then he unleashed the dogs. There is a lot to this conjecture-filled rant that seems self-serving, not advocating.

 

And this comes from someone who 100% supports his cause and his actions at various times. This? It seemed bitter and pathetic.

 

I respect your take on this - and I certainly do not see Kluwe as a martyr.

 

Let's say that what Kluwe said is 100% true on 1-3-13. Would there have been a good time to make it public or should he have sat on it and left it alone? If Priefer is that kind of a **** slush - I would hope that someone would disclose that information.

 

If it were me, I would, no matter the repercussions.

[TheLeviathan]

I respect your take on this - and I certainly do not see Kluwe as a martyr.

 

Let's say that what Kluwe said is 100% true on 1-3-13. Would there have been a good time to make it public or should he have sat on it and left it alone? If Priefer is that kind of a **** slush - I would hope that someone would disclose that information.

 

If it were me' date=' I would, no matter the repercussions.[/quote']

 

I'm not sure when the right time to disclose was. As I mentioned, I don't begrudge him some self preservation in this case. Hell, he had a cake job making big money. But if this guy was so persistently awful and you were doing your job (both according to Kluwe) - why did you do nothing? I can see why you don't go public (a refreshing thing for Kluwe especially) but why don't you bring your very serious coaching concern up the chain at the time? Hell, why don't you do anything other than sit on it until you're washed up?

 

I certainly can't condone that. I can understand being quiet about it publicly, but doing nothing until he goes nuclear takes a huge bite out of his credibility. This entire approach is what I might expect once a professional, mature, adult has exhausted all expected avenues of recourse.

 

Ignoring them and going straight to public ridicule is the avenue I'd expect from a teenager or someone equally immature and unprofessional.

[one_eyed_jack]

I'm not sure when the right time to disclose was. As I mentioned, I don't begrudge him some self preservation in this case. Hell, he had a cake job making big money. But if this guy was so persistently awful and you were doing your job (both according to Kluwe) - why did you do nothing? I can see why you don't go public (a refreshing thing for Kluwe especially) but why don't you bring your very serious coaching concern up the chain at the time? Hell, why don't you do anything other than sit on it until you're washed up?

 

I certainly can't condone that. I can understand being quiet about it publicly, but doing nothing until he goes nuclear takes a huge bite out of his credibility. This entire approach is what I might expect once a professional, mature, adult has exhausted all expected avenues of recourse.

 

Ignoring them and going straight to public ridicule is the avenue I'd expect from a teenager or someone equally immature and unprofessional.

 

---My views on this are very similar to yours.

 

I think what bothers me most is the way he acts like he's doing something noble for civil rights and changing NFL culture, when really he's just doing something childish and vindictive to get revenge on a few specific individuals he feels wronged by. This isn't about a cause, this is about Kluwe.

 

His whole "well, now that I've written this, I'll never get an NFL job" thing makes it sounds like he sacrificed his career for a cause he believes in, but that claim rings hollow because his NFL career was over anyway.

 

In fact he waited until that was a certainty before coming forward with this.

 

If he believed so strongly in GLBT rights, he should have spoken up, at least internally, when Preifer made the "nuke" comment. But he didn't. He was willing to continue working under Preifer as long as he was getting paid a fat salary for kicking a ball down a field.

 

I mean could you really claim to be all about racial equality if the managers at your workplace used the N-word and made offensive racial jokes, and you remained silent until months after they fired you?

[TheLeviathan]

This isn't about a cause, this is about Kluwe.

 

I agree, I gave him the benefit of the doubt at first because I appreciate his efforts for same sex marriage, but his radio comments yesterday shed new light on his article.

 

I think a lot of people are lining up to defend him because of his cause and, as a result, aren't critically looking at what he did here. This was selfish and juvenile. It's the equivalent of a negative facebook post, it's just Kluwe once again used the platform he has to indulge himself with no cognizance of how his words/actions impact others.

 

Also, was anyone else flabergasted when Leber brought up his article to the Maryland politician and suggested that Kluwe doesn't understand how his words are frequently interpreted? Kluwe insinuated that people who would get insulted by his "lustful cockmonster" language are missing the point to be insulted. I would think you wanted to be a little insulting, that's why you used that language. He appeared to think his prose was that of a gentlemanly discourse and was astounded that anyone would take offense. Imagine if the South Park guys honestly looked in the camera and were appalled that someone took offense to their work. You'd think them total idiots or glorified trolls. I couldn't help but do the same with Kluwe.

[one_eyed_jack]

Yeah that was pretty ridiculous. Like Leber said, because he was a Viking, people would inevitably associate him with the Vikings, and he needed to think about how he was presenting himself.

 

Kluwe has 2 young daughters. One day they'll reaching dating age. I wonder how he'd feel about a guy coming over to his house to pick one of his girls up and talking like that at the first meeting with the parents. What sort of impression would that leave him with? (I can only imagine the look on my father's face had some guy come over to pick up my sister and started talking about "lustful cockmonsters" . Yikes.)

 

And while I understand Kluwe taking shots at Preifer (who is a miserable human being if he really said that), and I don't understand him calling Frazier a coward. Even if you take everything Kluwe said as true, Frazier simply told him to tone it down, which is what any head coach would have done. Head coaches are there to win games, and they don't need to be putting out PR fires created by the punter. So Frazier was simply trying to avoid distractions that took the focus off of winning football games, which is what Frazier was being paid to do.

 

But Kluwe, by his own admission, did not speak up about Preifer because he feared for his job.

 

So like Frazier, he was motivated primarily by self-preservation. And if Frazier's self-preservation was cowardly, then so was Kluwe's. If anything, Kluwe's was more so because Frazier may not have known about the stuff Preifer was saying.

[TheLeviathan]

If anything, Kluwe's was more so because Frazier may not have known about the stuff Preifer was saying.

 

Your point about Kluwe's cowardice is incredibly salient. Very nice job.

 

All we can do is try to expose their behavior when we see it and call them to account for their actions

 

With the caveat that we do it when it's convenient for us and we won't stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oh, and of course, we joke around with that same person for months and act like it never happened - then we nail them when it's most convenient.

 

How noble.

[TheLeviathan]

Vikes retain Preifer as a coach. Which to me says that the investigation has turned out exactly as expected: Kluwe is full of it.

 

I hope he files a lawsuit and loses that too.

[highlander]

kluwe was cut for salary cap reasons. plain, simple, direct. chris lacks integrity by not stating his comments A) to priefer immediately

[TheLeviathan]

I think this report largely debunks Kluwe. Two people confirmed the comment but one said it was a joke that Kluwe laughed at when it happened. It's still a dumb and insensitive comment, but not what Kluwe portrayed.

 

Everything else pretty much erodes his claims - everyone else interviewed contradicted him. Not that he has much of a case, not sure how a young straight white male is the victim of discrimination.

[TheLeviathan]

Also, apparently, in the findings it's revealed Kluwe thought the Penn St. sexual abuse was something appropriate to joke about.

 

Ouch to credibility.

[Joe]

Also, apparently, in the findings it's revealed Kluwe thought the Penn St. sexual abuse was something appropriate to joke about.

 

Ouch to credibility.

 

Read that this morning. Hopefully he understands the hypocrisy and just goes away. I'm kind of embarrassed I initially liked Kluwe.