I'm guessing that FOX Sports sound guy Bernie Beaudry wasn't planning on becoming famous when he got to work at U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday afternoon. But, by the time the contest between the Minnesota Vikings and the Arizona Cardinals got underway, he was pretty much a household name.
See, Mr. Beaudry operates one of the "parabolic mics" on the sideline during football games for FOX, and just as the Vikings were getting ready to come out of the tunnel, he realized that he wasn't in the proper position. He got moving, figuring he had enough time to get to his spot.
In the words of the old knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, he chose. . .poorly.
The Vikings came charging out of the tunnel, led by defensive linemen Brian Robison and Linval Joseph. Beaudry got nudged by Robison, which threw him off just enough where he stumbled and got absolutely leveled by Joseph.
I haven't made a list of Vikings' players that I could stand to get trucked by, but I can assure you that if I did you damn sure wouldn't find Linval Joseph's name on it. The Vikings have Joseph listed at 325 pounds, and I believe that about as much as I believed the Vikings listing Pat Williams at 315 for all those years.
As you can see in the video, Beaudry took a pretty good shot (and check out the look on Everson Griffen's face when he sees what happened). But, he had a job to do, and he was later shown on the sidelines holding his parabolic mic as a part of the broadcast team.
Now that we know Beaudry wasn't seriously injured in the incident, we can all get a bit of a laugh out of it. He certainly fared better than Carson Palmer did yesterday.