Former NFL player says teammates smoked pot before playing Super Bowl [AUDIO]

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Ex-NFL linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo played in Super Bowl XLVII with the Baltimore Ravens last year, and in Super Bowl XLI with the Chicago Bears, and he shared something interesting about the experiences during a Fox Sports podcast.

According to Ayanbadejo, his teammates smoked marijuana before one of his two Super Bowls. He wouldn’t identify which players or which team were smoking during Super Bowl week.

"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 [Super Bowl] week, just to start the week off -- and all of the 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."

Ayanbadejo did not play in the NFL this season.

"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,” Ayanbadejo said. "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."

Pot has been a popular topic this week because both Washington and Colorado (the home states of the Seahawks and Broncos, respectively) recently legalized marijuana for recreational use.

Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll was asked about letting NFL players use marijuana for medicinal purposes during a press conference on Monday.

"I would say that we have to explore and find ways to make our game a better game and take care of our players in whatever way possible," Carroll said. "Regardless of what other stigmas might be involved, we have to do this because the world of medicine is doing this."

The details start coming around the 29:45 mark: