No one has made more clutch kicks than Adam Vinatieri, a four-time Super Bowl champion who retired as the NFL’s all-time leading scorer in 2019. Kicking a pressure field goal on football’s biggest stage takes more than a big leg. It takes an inherent fearlessness, an appetite for danger. Apparently, that trait also applies to Vinatieri’s off-field pursuits, recently going toe to toe with an apex predator on his trip to Africa.
“I do a lot of extreme hunting. Chased after lions with a bow and arrow and stuff like that,” said Vinatieri, an avid outdoorsman who owns a 750-acre hunting ranch in the Ozarks. “Three days ago, I was in Cameroon, Africa, hunting. That’s a whole different world over there.”
When Vinatieri was asked if he got the lion, he said that he did.
Vinatieri’s admission came while appearing as a guest on God Bless Football, promoting DiGiorno pizza as well as his upcoming “Kick of Destiny” with fellow Patriots alum Rob Gronkowski. While lion hunting is permitted in some parts of Africa, many consider it unethical, owing to its “vulnerable” status with fewer than 20,000 remaining in the wild. You may recall the controversy surrounding Cecil the lion, who was killed for sport by an American tourist in 2015. The incident was predictably met by outrage, with many debating the merits of hunting for recreational purposes.
An adrenaline junkie who claims to be a distant relative of legendary stunt performer Evel Knievel, Vinatieri seemed to revel in his accomplishment, a troubling sentiment that wildlife conservationists would likely view as tone-deaf. While it might make for good dinner conversation, some will surely be disappointed to hear Vinatieri treating lions not as a threatened species fighting for its life, but as a trophy to display above the living-room mantle.
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