The NFL Lockout hit everyone pretty hard as most NFL players and fans don't know what they're going to do with themselves if the Collective Bargaining Agreement isn't ironed out by the time the 2011 NFL season is supposed to begin next Fall. It seems at least one Minnesota Vikings player has a plan, however, as offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie was recently featured in a video on Youtube that showed him playing tennis with Venus Williams.
It seems rather unlikely that a 6-foot-8, 355-pound football player would ever end up playing tennis professionally and, thanks to a solid interview from the Pioneer Press, we've learned that McKinnie is only training with Williams so that he can get his weight down closer to 340 pounds after tipping the scales at 360 last season for the Vikings.
It seems that McKinnie has also found new motivation this offseason as well.
"I'm ready to conquer a whole bunch of different things," McKinnie told the Pioneer Press. "Seeing how they live and how grateful they are for everything they have and doing what they can to survive makes you realize, maybe I'm not working hard enough. That made me think about training camp - sometimes you don't want to do it, but we get to play football for a living."
Video of McKinnie's tennis lesson is included after the jump.