Before each of his 107 games for the Vikings, linebacker Anthony Barr had a predictable pregame ritual. It started before his first NFL game as a 2014 first-round pick out of UCLA.
Barr, who recently retired from the NFL after 10 seasons, would vomit into towels laid on the ground. He did so in the locker room or from the bench on the sideline. During the famed 2017 season — when the Vikings had the NFL’s No. 1 defense and eventually executed the Minneapolis Miracle — they were in London facing the Browns when teammate and best friend Eric Kendricks ran into the locker room after warmups.
“I’m sweaty, so I grab a towel off the ground, and I just wipe my face from top to bottom — completely get covered with orange peel,“ Kendricks said. ”I smell like citrusy — realize I had just used his towel from his pregame routine. That’s just a little story to show how close we are.”
Kendricks was among Barr’s teammates, including former safety Andrew Sendejo and linebacker Audie Cole, gathered at the Vikings’ Eagan headquarters on Monday to celebrate Barr — the hard-hitting defender who made four Pro Bowls as the first draft pick under former head coach Mike Zimmer.
Kendricks, who first roomed with Barr as UCLA linebackers before being drafted by the Vikings a year after him, introduced Barr at the lectern with the vomiting story that required further explanation.
“It was routine,” Barr, 33, said. “It was weird, because people would start like gathering around and knew it was time. \[Harrison Smith\] would get real close and I’d be like, ‘Bro, you’re like in the splash zone.’ If you know him, he’s weirdly strange and odd. It kind of makes sense.”
Anthony Barr, left, and Eric Kendricks in 2015 after the Vikings had drafted the two linebackers out of UCLA in back-to-back seasons. (Carlos Gonzalez/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Barr shared Kendricks’ pregame routine from when he first came into the league in 2015 and 2016, when fellow linebacker Edmond Robinson was on the team.
“Eric literally wouldn’t go on the field until Edmond told him his curls were popping,” Barr said. “Sometimes Edmond would forget, and he’d be like, ‘Oh, my bad — your curls, they’re popping. They’re popping.’ And he’d be ready to go. He just needed that confidence and affirmation that he was looking good. They’re popping right now.”