The Draw Play

It’s time to talk about Chris Kluwe. Recently his fight with the Vikings got fiercer, and yesterday we find out Mike Priefer (The Bigot Kluwe talked about in his Deadspin slam bit) is suspended for 3 games without pay and must take sensitivity classes. So Kluwe was right! Justice has been served!

Then we find out Kluwe cracked jokes at another coach who went to Penn State, by cutting a hole in his pants and pretending to be a Sandusky victim. Possibly multiple times. That’s when the real fun started. Soon enough he was on twitter ranting and sticking his foot in his mouth, claiming that lot of players made Sandusky jokes, so don’t judge him you guys everyone was being insensitive. Kluwe finally exposed himself as a hypocrite. He may have done the right thing and completely tanked his own reputation in the process.

I’ve been torn on my opinion of Kluwe as a person for a long time. On one hand, he’s doing good things. He’s helped bring the fight for LGBT rights to football, and he’s helped expose some of the toxic locker room culture that pervades the NFL. On the other hand, he’s an immature and obnoxious attention seeking twat who is hard to like when he starts going off.

Today it’s clear that much of this fight is for the attention. Something about it always rubbed me the wrong way, but now I’ve got something tangible to hold onto. His profane letter to the minister in defense of Brendon Ayanbadejo was kind of opportunistic, but I wasn’t bothered by it too much. I think he wrote it to be funny, but it blew up on him so he adopted the cause. Whatever, it’s a good cause, if he can help then good for him. I think his letter was immature, but I don’t think he ever meant it not to be, he made it purposefully outrageous. I found his tone stupid, but only because I’m also an internet veteran, and most of us find that sort of talk stupid by now. however it was clear the rest of the world wasn’t quite so exposed as the likes of me, and they were enthralled with his style. If it got people talking, and it got attention to the good causes, then maybe the stupid lulz speak was okay.

But then after his fame started to fade a bit, and he got cut from the Raiders…suddenly out he comes with a Deadspin assassination piece, completely slamming the Vikings. It felt…off. It felt like he waited for his career to officially be pretty much dead to jump back into the spotlight and become relevant again. When the Vikings kept mum, he started publicly calling them out. Today, that fight of his was won, but info on him came out at the same time, and instead of handling it like a mature human being he took to twitter and got on his high horse. I’d imagine his lawyer, who tried to keep the info under wraps, isn’t very happy about him mouthing off.

In his twitter, he defends his actions with the Sandusky jokes as “Over half the team did it for over a month, including asking him if he “raped any little boys lately,” repeatedly, in front of coaches.”

because other people doing it too makes it okay, is that it Kluwe? That is a weak defense.

Then he mentions “Oooh, shall we talk about the time two very well known Vikings players were caught in a compromising situation with an underage girl?”

Does anyone know what situation he is referring to? I don’t remember hearing about this. If this happened, did he bring the issue to the authorities? Did he make it public? Did he do the right thing with the information he knew? Of course not, he was still on the team then. He had no reason to do the right thing then. he had no reason to be the good person. But now that his career is over, it’s cool to slam some folks. Being afraid of the hand that feeds you is one thing, proclaiming yourself morally superior while doing things like this makes you a hypocrite.

But the big deal here is that Kluwe felt it was okay to make child rape jokes to give a coach a hard time. It’s okay to not bring up and do the right thing when two players were caught with an underage girl. But making homophobic jokes is worth trying to ruin someone’s career for? It just feels hypocritical. It doesn’t matter if you think Preifer’s jokes and Kluwe’s jokes were both funny, the fact that Kluwe made a huge stink about one while participating in another shows that his values are not where he proclaims them to be. he does not believe fully in his cause, and this whole thing was him being bitter about getting cut and deciding to take everyone down.  Kluwe needs to grow up and actually try to be the person he thinks he is.

“People, please remember that I choose my words very carefully. Assumptions are your enemy.” – Chris Kluwe

That sounds like something a 14yr old on 4chan would say when trying to sound smart.

Remember his Deadspin piece? Here’s a quote:

One of the main coaching points I’ve heard throughout my entire life is, “How you respond to difficult situations defines your character,” and I think it’s a good saying. 

So Kluwe responds to difficult situations for his coach by making child rape jokes. He responds to news that teammates are with underage girls by keeping it mum for his own sake. He responds to the Vikings accusations today by going on an immature twitter rant likely against any legal advice. Kluwe has defined his character alright.

This whole ordeal has hurt his credibility. If he wanted to keep his teammates out of this, his twitter rant just betrayed that ideal and now everyone is wondering what that underage thing is about. He basically threw them under the bus by mentioning it vaguely. So much for that ideal. It also makes me wonder about the whole thing up to this point. Weve had no reason to doubt Kluwe’s claims, but his actions tonight might even throw his release into a new light. Was it about Stats? Probably not. Was it about youth and salary cap concerns? Seems valid enough, but was it because he supported gay rights very publicly or was it because he was obnoxious about it? Frankly now I’m wondering about Priefer. Maybe he really is a bigot. Or maybe he was just giving Kluwe a hard time. This story along with the Incognito story has shown how locker room culture can be very, very politically incorrect. Maybe Priefer was just trying to mess with Kluwe, and Kluwe took it the wrong way, or got self righteous, and made a big stink which caused him to be viewed as a distraction. I don’t want to defend someone who joked about nuking all gay people. I don’t. That statement and others were disgusting. But if it’s okay to ask a coach if he “raped any children today” in the NFL’s locker room culture, it makes me really wonder how sincere Priefer was in the first place. All Kluwe had to do was shut up, wait and make an official statement, and maybe an apology for his past jokes. Instead he took to twitter, threw teammates under a bus, and defended his jokes with “well everyone was doing it”. That is not the mature way to handle this.

Take a page from Jon Martin. When Incognito pushed back he stayed quiet, he let Incognito plead his case and he even got turned on for a while, but then he came out with the results of the investigation and Incognito was left alone, crying himself to sleep.

“I also hope that Leslie Frazier and Rick Spielman take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are the people they truly profess themselves to be.”

I hope you do too, Kluwe. You took a big responsibility onto your shoulders. A good fight, a worthwhile fight. You’ve done some good things. People are counting on you. They don’t need a drama queen who talks in dated internet memes, they need the person you pretend to be. It’s time to be that person. I really want to go back to thinking you’re cool. I want to go back to liking you. I want LGBT rights to have a good football spokesman because lord knows football needs it. This is all up to how you act as this fight presses on. Don’t proclaim the moral high ground, earn it with your actions. No one has really doubted you about your accusations about Priefer and the Vikings until now. People are mad at you now because of how you are carrying yourself, for what it says about who you are and what you might really be doing. You look petty. Your unprofessional attitude is your biggest enemy right now. It’s time to grow up, and do the right thing.