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.

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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.

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