Not the kind of exposure Visanthe Shiancoe wanted

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During some postgame video that aired on Sunday from inside the Minnesota Vikings’ locker room was a very brief shot of a partly exposed Visanthe Shiancoe.

The tight end’s towel had slipped in an image that lasted only a fifth of a second, according to NFL and Fox Sports spokesmen. (It was a Fox station that originally filmed the postgame segment of the Vikings celebrating the victory over Detroit.)

Within an hour, the image was on the Web. According to the editor of one of those sites, some viewers who thought they saw something naughty rewound their DVRs, used freeze frame and found out that they had indeed seen something naughty, and then e-mailed off the photos.

Commentary on what this means our society is coming to -- I mean, really, taking photos off TV because a guy’s towel slips and your first instinct is to post them on the Web? -- aside, Fox Sports apologized and NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league regretted the incident.

‘It was unfortunate,’ Aiello said. ‘These are long-standing procedures we have. The televising network, upon request and with the permission of the club, is allowed to record and videotape in the post-game locker room setting. We’ll review the procedures with the networks this week.’

As of midafternoon Monday, one clip of the locker room scene reportedly had received 145,000 hits and was on track to become the leader in one-day hits (beating out a compilation of ESPN anchor Chris Berman’s angriest moments).

By the way, a gossip columnist at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune did track down Shiancoe, a 6-foot-4, 250-pound tight end, at a private postgame party. Shiancoe wasn’t thrilled to know how famous he had become for non-football-playing reasons.

-- Diane Pucin