Chris Kluwe's Lawsuit Against the Vikings Might Get Ugly

In a press conference Tuesday, former Minnesota Viking punter Chris Kluwe announced his intention to file a lawsuit against his former employer. The suit stems from allegations in an article he wrote and published on Deadspin in January, which claimed:

• Kluwe was cut from the team after the 2012 season because of his activism and involvement in the gay rights movement.
• Special teams coach Mike Pfiefer is a homophobe who said he'd like to "round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows" during a special teams meeting.
• Then head coach Leslie Frazier and general manager Rick Spielman both repeatedly encouraged Kluwe to put a stop to his activism.

The article prompted the Vikings to hire Eric Magnuson, a former chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and Chris Madel, a former US Justice Department attorney, to conduct an internal investigation of Kluwe's claims and to determine whether Kluwe was cut for "football reasons" as the Vikings have always claimed. According to Kluwe, the team promised to share the findings of that investigation with him or the public at large, and so far it has not—hence the lawsuit.

Kluwe's lawyer is set to meet with the Vikings today, and is expected to make it known to the team that Kluwe will consider dropping the suit if the investigation is made public. There's also this:

Kluwe's attorney said he knows the investigators corroborated Kluwe's claim the Mike Priefer did say the "nuke the gays" comment.

— Matt Vensel (@mattvensel) July 15, 2014

The Vikings are in trouble here because it's pretty impossible to claim that their internal investigation turned up no evidence of wrongdoing and, if it did, there would be no reason for them to keep the report sealed. It's not that hard to extrapolate from the silence that the investigators confirmed some or all of Pfiefer's behavior—and possibly some systemic issues throughout the organization—and that Kluwe was cut for reasons unrelated to his punting, which would open them up to another civil suit from Kluwe.

If all of Kluwe's allegations are true, it would mean that an NFL team harbored some deeply homophobic assholes and got rid of a player who was causing headaches in the headlines for them—which would be, as everyone knows, impossible and unthinkable.

Follow David Matthews on Twitter.