Former NFL kickers David Akers and Rob Bironas were good friends.
Such good friends in fact that for the past five months, Akers and Bironas - the former Tennessee Titans kicker who recently died in a single car crash amid reports of bizarre and violent behavior - had seen each other twice a week every week for training sessions.
They were friends not just because they both belonged to the small fraternity of NFL players or the even smaller fraternity of NFL kickers. The two were born and raised in Kentucky and had known one another for 20 years.
After the 6-time Pro Bowler Akers was let go by the Detroit Lions and Bironas was released by the Titans in March, the two reunited in Nashville in April.
Both were seeking a return to the NFL.
"We were kind of in the same boat," Akers told USA Today Sports.
Akers said Bironas was in good spirits after a tryout with the Lions after having garnered prior interest from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Miami Dolphins.
"He seemed very positive," Akers said. "I didn't see a guy that was depressed in any sense or felt like was unstable in anyway at all."
Akers said he was shocked by the reports of Bironas' behavior - and driving - prior to the crash and his death.
"I've ridden with Rob several times and we've followed each other several times and I haven't seen this erratic, just crazy, speeding driver," Akers said. "I can't wrap my mind around it. It's just totally out of character from what we're hearing. So it's something that isn't adding up in my mind right now.
"I'm not saying it didn't happen. It just doesn't make sense...I've been behind him, I've been in the car with him and I haven't seen that side. I've just seen the side that chills out a little bit. I don't know. Unless he was just really good at having two different lives and that's not what I've heard from his other friends that have been around him as well."
He claimed to have never seen a darker side of Bironas and said that the former Titan had even begun talking about life post-NFL.
Akers, racking his brain for answers, wasn't able to unearth anything in his relationship with Bironas that could have foreshadowed these events.
"It's just a feeling like something's missing," Akers said. "Obviously there are a lot of questions that his friends and I'm sure family would like to have answered."
