Mike Zimmer wasn’t sure whether to believe Michael Floyd’s Kombucha tea defense, but the Vikings coach made it clear to the receiver the consequences of lying.
“I said, ‘If I find out you’re lying to me, I’m going to cut you,’ ” Zimmer told Brian Murphy of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Zimmer talked to Floyd over the phone soon after Floyd violated terms of his house arrest by failing three self-administered Breathalyzer tests June 10-11. Floyd claimed he drank several bottles of Kombucha tea, unaware it contains alcohol.
“Do I believe it? I don’t know how much tea he drank. I have no clue,” Zimmer told the newspaper. “I don’t have any doubt why there’d be skepticism, but he told me that he wasn’t [drinking]. That it was legit.”
The Vikings defended Floyd, whom they signed to a one-year, $1.4 million contract as a free agent, after news broke about Floyd’s positive tests for alcohol. Scottsdale City Judge Statia Hendrix found Floyd in violation and sentenced him to one day in jail.
Floyd had his disciplinary hearing with NFL officials last month. He faces a minimum two-game unpaid suspension under the leagues’s substance abuse policy, but the extreme DUI conviction from December in Arizona could draw greater punishment.