What they’re saying about Vikings: Mostly hilarious headline and tweet edition

What’s that old saying about if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Well, today, sports fans, it’s our beloved and bedeviled Minnesota Vikings. That’s who they’re laughing at: You, the purple gang.

The scope of this little joke is pretty far and wide, but let’s start with our opponents on the other side. Ladies and Gentleman, the New York Daily News:

“Not defeated! Giants get first win, dump awful Vikings“

The Daily News is a tabloid, so you get two headlines (one on the back page) for the price of one. The second one:

“Somebody’s Worse! Lowly Giants top lowlier Vikings for first victory of season“

The crosstown rivals at the New York Post have these two offerings:

“Finally! Giants beat awful Vikings for first victory“

“Giants-Vikings special teams nightmare“

Hey, let’s give the local hacks some props. The Star Tribune comes through with a couple dingers:

“The Biggest Losers: The Vikings were even worse than the Giants, who were awful but still won their first game“

And for good measure, the Strib also offered: “Putrid in prime time, bumbling Vikings fall to Giants, drop to 1-5“

The Associated Press has not one, but two, headlines calling the Vikings “sloppy.”

ESPN notes how Josh Freeman “underwhelms” in his debut.

For further raspberries, someone tweeted this chart of Freeman’s passes:

https://twitter.com/Paul_Dalen/status/392511346970861568

Yahoo! Sports and NBC Sports have both decided that the Vikings are “hapless.”

Wait, Yahoo! Sports has also decided the Vikings are “punchless.”

And Yahoo! also asks this in a headline: “Josh Freeman looked horrendous in his Viking debut, so now what?“

Yahoo! Sports finally sums it up thusly: “G-Men Get First Win in MNF Dud“

Dud? That one hurts the most, doesn’t it Viking fans? Dud?! Ow. Ow, ow, ow.

Perhaps the harshest assessment comes from former Viking great and Hall of Famer Cris Carter, who had this to say on ESPN’s Mike & Mike show:

“That’s not my team. That’s the worst Viking game I’ve ever seen. It’s embarrassing as a Vikings fan, it’s embarrassing as a former Viking player. That’s not pro football.”

He also compared Josh Freeman to a third-grader at one point, and says that the decision to play Josh Freeman “was forced on Leslie Frazier.”

For final measure of how bad things really are, Fox 9 provides a handy list of the 12 best tweets about the debacle.