Chris Kluwe is one of the most outspoken players in the NFL, so it’s no surprise that he used his platform as a punter for the Minnesota Vikings to campaign for Ray Guy to be voted into the Hall of Fame.
All NFL teams had patches on their jerseys Sunday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As seen in the screenshot above, Kluwe decided to cover his patch with a message that read, “Vote Ray Guy.”
“Of course, I’m going to get fined,” Kluwe told 1500 ESPN after the game. “For me it’s hard to support a Hall of Fame that doesn’t recognize punters. If you took a kid into the Hall of Fame and that was the only thing they knew about football, they would have no idea that punters even played the game. Why am I going to support a Hall of Fame that does that? So, vote Ray Guy.”
Guy is considered to be the greatest punter in NFL history. Drafted in the first round of the 1973 NFL draft by the Oakland Raiders, he reached the Pro Bowl seven times and was voted All-Pro three times. He averaged 42.4 yards per punt for his career, and his punts were so high and far in distance, they led to the concept of “hang time.”
Last month, Guy went off about the lack of punters in the Hall of Fame (none have been elected). Kluwe wrote a long complaint in response where he called Hall of Fame voters “petulant, ignorant, and flat-out stupid” for keeping Guy out of Canton.
Though special teams is a smaller part of the game than offense or defense, is still is important. Guy was an extremely valuable player, in many ways an innovator, and he was the best ever to do his job. I’m really not sure what more the Hall of Fame is looking for out of a player. There really is little justification for keeping him out of the Hall. It just seems spiteful at this point.
H/T Deadspin
