On Tuesday afternoon we did a blog post about Vikings coach Brad Childress and some of his coaches and players being taken via helicopter for a visit and tour of the National Guard base.
Included in the group was tight end Visanthe Shiancoe, who you might recall got into a bit of a feud on Twitter with his friend and former teammate Darren Sharper last month about the Sept. 9 regular-season opener between the Vikings and the Saints. Sharper, of course, now plays for New Orleans, which beat the Vikings in the NFC title game last season and went on to win the Super Bowl. (It all started when Sharper tweeted the Saints were going to target Brett Favre's surgically repaired ankle hours after it became known that Favre had undergone the procedure.)
Shiancoe sent plenty of tweets and pictures from his National Guard visit (www.twitter.com/VShiancoe) and at one point wrote: "TRUE STORY! Before target practice a soldier suggested a custom target for me. Guess he wanted to start my engine early for the SAINTS game!"
Turns out that target had a picture of Osama Bin Laden with a No. 42 drawn on the front of his shirt and a bubble quote with the words, "I'm Darren Sharper." Shiancoe posted before and after pictures with plenty of holes from target practice in the after picture. Shiancoe wrote, "The aftermath.. Can't even hold a game check with hands like that.. See you thurs night."
That was a reference to the fact Sharper tweeted that if Shiancoe has no touchdowns and less than three catches on Sept. 9 that the tight end should turn over his game check to Sharper. If Shiancoe exceeds those figures, he would presumably get Sharper's check. (None of this is going to happen, of course, but ... )
No word yet on how Sharper will respond to this latest bit of Twitter byplay but there is little doubt he will come up with something.
