Minnesota Vikings training camp had its own little whodunit, and it came with a fittingly campy name: “Bluntgate.”
On the “Bent Outta Shape” podcast, two Pro Bowl linebackers revisited the day their head coach came barreling into a team meeting after hotel staff said someone had been smoking on the third floor. He made everyone staying there stand up, then laid down the law by telling the room that smoking in the hotel was the same as smoking inside his house.
That was enough to turn a complaint into a full-on investigation. The two veterans started piecing together a suspect list, split up the roles like a crime drama and began working teammates over between practices. Training camp boredom did the rest.
Eric Kendricks came up with the nickname, laughing off the whole scene as “Bluntgate.” Anthony Barr remembered the room’s stunned reaction when the head coach ordered every player on the third floor to stand.
“And he’s like, ‘Everyone on the third floor of the hotel, stand up.’ And we’re like, ‘Oh my god, what happened?’”
Barr said.
Kendricks said the monotony of camp made the whole thing too funny to ignore. “What better way to break up camp besides have a list of suspects under investigation?” he said.
From there, the pair leaned all the way in. They worked the joke on the practice field, in the weight room and around meetings, catching teammates off guard and treating the whole thing like an actual case. Barr and Kendricks had enough status in Zimmer’s locker room that they could pull almost anyone aside without killing the punchline.
Kendricks even made it more absurd by complimenting a player’s practice before hitting him with the interrogation: “Where were you last night at 7 p.m.? Were you smoking in the hotel room?”
Some players laughed it off. Others tried to explain themselves and only made the bit funnier.
Barr said the suspect pool eventually got trimmed down to two or three players. “They were guilty,” he said.
“I’m not going to tell you who it was.” Kendricks kept the names to himself, too, leaving the actual culprits anonymous.
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