By Ben Goessling ben.goessling@startribune.com
Eric Kendricks spent the last days of May stewing over his thoughts, sorting through the pain he felt over George Floyd's death and searching for the right way to respond to a statement from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell he felt hadn't gone far enough.
The Vikings linebacker is ordinarily reticent in public, wary of attracting widespread attention. His comments to reporters are typically polite, but brief, and he'd tweeted just once in May, about an NFL Network story on how Kendricks was selling his own paintings to raise money for COVID-19 relief.
But as he played back everything he'd seen and felt — over the video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck and the 150-word statement Goodell released on May 30 offering condolences to the families of Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor without mentioning racism or police brutality — Kendricks kept thinking of teammates on the Vikings' social justice committee with whom he'd shared ideas and processed deep hurt.