Kluwe works his own contract with McNabb

Chris Kluwe is taking advantage of his Twitter fame, publicly selling his jersey number to Donovan McNabb for promotion, charity and … well, an ice cream cone.

Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe negotiated his own contract Friday, all the way down to the final details – an ice cream cone.

In the heat of a frenzied free-agent period, Kluwe wasn’t a free agent and wasn’t switching teams. He wasn’t even extending his player contract with the Vikings. Instead, the hyper-tweeting punter used his infamous white board that has publicly poked fun at NFL safety videos in the past to draw up the details of what it would take for him to relinquish his No. 5 jersey to new Vikings quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Let’s just say it took far less time for this transaction than it did for the Vikings and McNabb to work out an agreement on how to lower his salary-cap hit this year of $12.5 million to something the Vikings could stomach. The details of Kluwe’s separate negotiations with McNabb?

Chris Kluwe's contract with Donovan McNabb
(Courtesy Minnesota Vikings)

"I, Chris Kluwe, hereby relinquish #5 to Donovan McNabb in exchange for the following:

5 mentions of my band Tripping Icarus in non-consecutive press conferences

$5,000 donation to Kick For A Cure to benefit Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

An ice cream cone"

In a video posted on Vikings.com, Kluwe introduced the contract to McNabb, who made quick work of the negotiations by agreeing to the terms. Of course, Kluwe had the signature lines all properly denoted and even drew an “official seal thingy” with the state of Minnesota illustrated.

After signing the contract, the punter ripped the “Kluwe” nameplate from the No. 5 jersey, affixed “McNabb” to it and handed the jersey to the former Pro Bowl quarterback.

McNabb asked Kluwe for a copy of the contract, and the quick-witted punter informed him that he could take the white board with him.

McNabb started fulfilling the terms of the contract in his first conference call as a Viking, making sure to mention Kluwe’s metal band (think Metallica) often when asked about it.

“Me and him have basically been selling some good rock music CDs out of the back of our trunk. There’s some group that he’s a part of, but I’ve been listening to them for a while,” McNabb said, apparently struggling to remember the name Tripping Icarus. “You guys should really check it out. I may be a member of it soon. Tripping Icarus is a nice band that really has soothing music, it really changes the mood of things and it’s one that I enjoy.”

His statement seems to imply that he really hasn’t listened to Kluwe’s band, but by the time he was done talking about it, he had mentioned the band six times, apparently not yet aware that separate press conferences were required.

Kluwe wasted no time taking advantage of the McNabb situation. Shortly after the trade talks could official start this week, he was tweeting his intentions.

“I will take number 4, since pi is not an option,” he wrote, with hashtags of “iwantanimaginarynumber” and “Brettwontmind,” a reference to Brett Favre’s number last year.

“What happened after the cameras stopped rolling?” Vikings assistant director of public affairs Jeff Anderson tweeted. “Donovan asked Kluwe what flavor of ice cream. Chris said no flavor, just the cone.”

If only free-agent negotiations were that easy.

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Tim Yotter is the publisher of Viking Update. Follow Viking Update on Twitter and discuss this topic on our message boards. To become a subscriber to the Viking Update web site or magazine, click here.

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