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Free Agent Linebacker Tells Bizarre Story Of Marijuana Use By Super Bowl Team

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- There are stories about professional athletes and drugs, and then there's this one, which will be pretty hard to top.

Brendon Ayanbadejo, who played linebacker in the NFL for three different teams over 10 years, recently told FoxSports.com one of the more outrageous stories about apparent marijuana use by NFL players that you will ever hear.

Ayanbadejo, now 37 and a free agent, went to the Super Bowl with the 2006 Chicago Bears and the 2012 Baltimore Ravens. From there, specifics are hard to come by, but the story itself is pretty amazing.

"I'm not going to say which Super Bowl it was but I just remember getting off the elevator one night — it was early on in the week, just to start the week off — and all of a sudden I just got hit over the head with fumes of marijuana on the entire floor of the hotel that the team was staying on," Ayanbadejo said. "I could just imagine there were a few young guys just toking it up in more than one room.

"I was like, 'Man this is the week of the Super Bowl and you're just going in?' So then I was looking around, and I'm like 'OK, where is the security?' I looked and for some reason we didn't have regular police — coach was smart enough to have rent-a-cops on our floor instead of regular police like we usually do," he added. "I scratched my head but I was like, 'OK, uh, that's a good thing 'cause . . .' that's it. That's all I've got to say about that."

Ayanbadejo, a three-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro as a special teamer, is no stranger to telling it like it is. He has repeatedly spoken out publicly in support of sexual equality.

Marijuana has become a hot topic during the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLVIII after Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll came out in support of a possible NFL plan to look into allowing players to use medical marijuana to treat concussions.

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