The Minnesota Vikings' season will be on the line Sunday against the Chicago Bears. As such, linebacker Chad Greenway has asked fans to get "super-duper drunk" in order to boost the Vikings' home-field advantage at the Metrodome.
"We have to play accordingly and our fans have to show up accordingly, which we know they will. Hopefully, they're super-duper drunk. ... So drink liquor, not beer," he said after Minnesota's loss to Green Bay last Sunday, according to the Star Tribune.
The Vikings (6-6) trail the first-place Bears (8-4) by two games in the NFC North standings. The Bears, tied with Green Bay atop the standings, beat the Vikings in Chicago two weeks ago.
The game is scheduled to start at noon local time. As such, Greenway advocated that fans start their drinking early.
"Yeah, I would say morning drinking," Greenway said, according to the newspaper. "Why not? You could pull an all-nighter. Then you'd have the drunk, tired guys who will really be obnoxious."
On Thursday, Greenway tried to clarify his comments, saying in an interview with "The Waddle & Silvy Show" on ESPN 1000 in Chicago that he "went a little far."
"Obviously, I could have used some more responsible words," Greenway said. "I think the people that know me, the beat writers included, know that I said that sort of tongue-in-cheek.
"I just wanted the fans at home to be loud like they always are. I think just trying to drive that point home I probably got a little loose with my words. Obviously, I should have been a little more responsible with it. It was said, so what do you do?"
Greenway, who leads the NFL with 123 tackles, said he drew from his college experience in making the comments.
"I played football at the University of Iowa and all I knew was that they started drinking at about 5 o'clock at those games for tailgating so I thought it would be OK to say it," Greenway said Thursday. "Obviously I just went a little far."