A STAR IS BORN

Before Sunday, Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe was a name known primarily to bona fide football geeks, and particularly those who were pleased to get some solid fantasy production from an off-the-radar source. Now, however, Shiancoe is becoming a star. But not for anything he has done on the field; the coming run on Shiancoe jerseys at NFLShop.com (click the ads on this site to get there) has been fueled by the fleeting image of “Little Shiancoe” that made it onto the airwaves after Minnesota’s bullet-dodging in Detroit. And Shiancoe seems to be loving every minute of it. To a female columnist from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune who informed Shiancoe that video of the incident was on YouTube, Shiancoe said, “How’d it look?” And he didn’t seem to be all that upset by the fact that a nation of football fans became introduced to him in a way that they never imagined -- and that most of them never wanted. "[I]t’s not too bad,” he said. “I didn’t just get out the pool.” (We found the Star-Tribune item on Deadspin, and if we learned anything from last week’s Chris Landry plagiarism fiasco, it’s that cutting and pasting is a no-no, especially when dealing with the penises of pro football players. Um, that didn’t come out the way we intended.)