After seeing Percy Harvin do what amounted to a Metrodome leap into the stands after his 23-yard touchdown catch to open the scoring in the second quarter Sunday, Visanthe Shiancoe thought about doing the same when he hauled in an 8-yard scoring pass from Brett Favre.
Shiancoe quickly decided against such a move.
"[Harvin's] got a little bit more ups than me, so I didn't want to embarrass myself," Shiancoe said. "It's kind of slippery around [there], so if you take that leap and you miss, it's going to be embarrassing and you're going to be on 'SportsCenter' or something like that."
Shiancoe certainly ended up on "SportsCenter" on Sunday, but it was for the right reasons. The tight end was the target of 10 passes in the Vikings' 35-9 victory over Seattle and caught a career-high eight of them for 78 yards and the touchdown.
Shiancoe now has seven touchdown receptions this season, putting him one behind the mark established for a Vikings tight end by Joe Senser in 1981.
When Favre joined the Vikings, the assumption was that Shiancoe would be in line for a huge season, because of how much the future Hall of Fame quarterback has looked to his tight ends in the past.
But until Sunday, Shiancoe's most receptions in a game was four, and he had achieved that feat three times.
Asked if Sunday's performance was what he had envisioned when Favre came aboard, Shiancoe said: "I just envisioned our offense taking off and our offense coming together, which we are progressing to do. We're getting better every week."