At the Daily Norseman, taking shots at “pro” sports personalities comes as second nature. Ted Glover and Eric Thompson have developed a particular joy in sharing the … gems … from Andy Benoit’s Twitter feed, and have taken it one step further:
I love football, and I love the Vikings, because DUH. I also love writing about them, and interacting with other fans of the Vikings either in person or on social media. I also love hearing what other writers and fans think about the Vikings, because for the most part, it’s an objective analysis on what we tend to look at through purple colored glasses.
Then there’s Andy Benoit.
Andy is a national writer for Sports Illustrated, and is a featured NFL columnist on the SI site Monday Morning Quarterback (MMQB). He writes and tweets about every team in the NFL…and his opinions can be just so bad that sometimes, it feels like he’s doing nothing but trolling.
[…]
But this one…THIS TWEET RIGHT HERE…is his Magnum Opus of Vikings commentary:
#Vikings notes: Skeptical about Loadholt. Tough injury to come back from given his skills and style of play.
— Andy Benoit (@Andy_Benoit) August 5, 2016
I was skeptical as well, since Loadholt had retired some 11 days prior to this tweet. Damn near impossible to come back once you hang it up.
Wait.
So yeah, I think Andy isn’t so much a purveyor of hot takes as he is a card player.
Wait, card player, Ted? Is…is that what you said?
Yes, yes it is. You ever played the game Cards Against Humanity? It’s basically two decks of cards that is a situation and an action, and when they’re mashed together it becomes nonsensical and funny. […]
And now you can play along too!
Hi kids! Eric here. Ted and I were discussing the randomness of Benoit’s Vikings takes right after he got the “Cards Against Humanity” idea. I joked that a random generator could probably come up with better ideas about Vikings players.
But then I thought, “No seriously, there really should be Vikings take generator.”
And then I thought, “I have a Computer Science degree. I bet I could make one.”
Two hours later, by the power of some rudimentary web development skills that I haven’t put to use in a dozen years and a few Google searches about JavaScript, I present to you:
The concept is simple: Click the link above to generate a random take about a Vikings player. I have test-driven the generator about 50 times now, with some pretty entertaining results. There are some that you could swear were ripped right from one of Mr. Benoit’s tweets. There are some that make no sense at all. There are some that might actually be a little too accurate.
(I know the implementation is pretty clunky; the link opens a pop-up with the take and opens a new tab every time. You must also have JavaScript enabled to use it. But hey, you get what you pay for, right?)
