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Visanthe Shiancoe Downplays Ongoing Twitter Hostilities With Darren Sharper

Jun 4, 2010, 4:50 PM UTC

For several weeks now, tensions have run high between Minnesota tight end Visanthe Shiancoe and New Orleans safety Darren Sharper on Twitter. For a while, it seemed that the rivalry would only escalate until the Saints and Vikings staged their rematch of last season’s NFC Championship Game on the opening Thursday of the 2010 NFL season.â†µâ†µFor the uninitiated, the bad blood was stirred by Sharper on May 21 on the social networking site when he said “X marks the spot” in reference to Brett Favre’s surgically repaired ankle. Remember, of course, that the Saints made a point to batter Favre as severely as possible during the conference title game, to the extent that some suggested it was excessive or even dirty. Shiancoe later mused to reporters where the X was on Sharper’s own surgically repaired extremities. â†µ

â†µâ†µFrom there, Sharper dared Shiancoe to put his game check against the safety’s prediction that he would hold Shiancoe to no touchdowns and fewer than three catches in the rematch. Shiancoe caught four passes for 83 yards in the NFC Championship Game. It all came to a head when Shiancoe posted a picture from a trip to a firing range of a bullet-ridden picture of Osama bin Laden with Sharper’s jersey number drawn over its chest and the words “I’m Darren Sharper” written in a word balloon next to its mouth. Sharper responded on Twitter with a series of physical threats, saying, “I don’t care about the fine.” â†µ

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â†µObviously, things were straying a little too close to the extreme and actionable. With matters getting that out of hand, either the two players would step back from the brink or go full-on until the league was forced to take action. Based on the comments Shiancoe made yesterday, it appears as though they're doing the former. Scoffing, "I can't believe anyone is falling for this nonsense," the tight end tried to portray it as an inside joke between friends. Which might be acceptable, had he not made these comments prior to the shooting range incident.â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥“We’re not going to take that lightly,” Shiancoe said. “I think it was a joke. I know Sharp personally. That’s my boy. We hang out and stuff like that. But just like he said before the last NFC championship game, he told me that their whole goal was to aim for my knees. He didn’t do it, but I know he talks trash.”â†µâ†µâ†µThat doesn’t sound like someone who is fully certain that everything has been in good fun. Theirs might be a friendship based on smack talk, but it looks like they’re both now realizing that it has gone too far for public consumption.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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