“I Could Kick 20 Field Goals”: Mina Kimes Sheds Tears Trying Smelling Salts for the First Time

From Aaron Rodgers to Marvin Lewis to Baker Mayfield, we’ve seen a wide range of NFL-associated people getting fired up before a play or before a game by using smelling salts. And hey, before you get all bent out of shape about that, it’s totally legal!

There was actually a bit of a kerfuffle during this past offseason when the NFL announced that it would be banning smell salts and other such substances.

However, the NFLPA then clarified that the league only meant that teams themselves could not purchase smelling salts for their players. But if players want to buy their own and bring them in, “BYOS” as ESPN’s Mina Kimes so eloquently put it, they are still allowed to do so.

This has led to curiosity among those of us who have never used or even thought of needing to use smelling salts. In most professions, you never need to get as amped up and dialed in as NFL players do. So when Kimes started talking about the salts on Pablo Torres’ podcast, of course, the journalist responded by bringing some out for them to try. This is true investigative journalism.

Kimes, after holding the salt too close to her face, literally fell out of her chair. “Oh my god! Too close to my face! I put it way too close to my face,” she said with a laugh. “You are actively crying right now,” Torres added.

“I feel like I could kick 20 field goals! Ahhh!” Kimes shouted, completely fired up.

Then Torre took his turn and brought it even closer to his face, yelling, “Oh, f*ck! … That felt like I just got shot with a chlorinated pool. Like, Jesus Christ.”

While the smelling salts clearly hampered Kimes and Torres despite their claims, NFL players know how to use the adrenaline to their advantage. As the “tiny text on the bottom” of the bottle said, smelling salts are “ideal for athletes.”

And we have already seen two extraordinary examples of players using smelling salts directly before they make a massive play this season. They both came in Week 4. The first one was Seattle Seahawks kicker Jason Myers, who can be seen in a close-up shot getting a nice nostril full of the stuff as he walked onto the field before nailing a game-winning field goal to give Seattle the game 23-20. Tough.

A few days later in Dublin, Pittsburgh Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers can be seen getting a good ol’ sniff of the salts as he walks to the line for the next play. Maybe five seconds after sniffing, Rodgers laced a bullet to D.K. Metcalf on a slant, and the big wideout raced 80 yards to pay dirt. Also tough.

But clearly, guys like Myers and Rodgers have built up a tolerance. Or, at least they are more aware of what they need from and how to use the smelling salts. Because if they’d reacted as harshly as Kimes and Torres did in their hilarious experiment, they surely wouldn’t have made the plays they did for their teams.

Obviously, NFL players do have a legitimate use for this stuff. And if they’re bringing it in themselves, there’s really no liability issue for the league. These are grown men, after all. What’s the harm?