Carolina Panthers player’s minivan sideswiped at Chick-fil-A. Jokes erupt on Twitter
Carolina Panthers kicker Graham Gano became the butt of good-natured ribbing on social media over the weekend when he tweeted his vehicle was sideswiped by a hit-and-run driver.
The jokes were not about the accident, however. They were about his ride.
“Shout out to the folks that sideswiped our minivan at Chick-fil-A and then drove off, Gano tweeted sarcastically. “And yes, we drive a minivan, bring on the jokes.”
He included a meme of actor Liam Neeson’s infamous “I fill find you, and I will kill you” speech from the 2009 movie “Taken.”
Twitter responded with every possible minivan meme, including a pep talk video by retired quarterback Peyton Manning for people ashamed of driving minivans. (“Take that baby out and paint some flames on it,” Manning advised.)
Some on Twitter insisted the driver had done Gano a favor by hitting his “swagger wagon,” while a few stoked conspiracy theories that Gano had been targeted by kickers who want his job. He has been on injured reserve this season, with quarterback Cam Newton.
Gano has good reason to drive a minivan, as a husband and father of five kids, including twins born in the past year.
Plenty of other minivan drivers showed solidarity on social media, and a few even found humor in imagining the kind of “butt kicking” an NFL kicker could deliver.
“Can you imagine how bad it would hurt to have your butt kicked by Graham Gano,” one commenter tweeted.
“I thought I’d see a video of you kicking a deep ball around the corner of the street and hitting ‘the’ car driving away,” another wrote.
Gano continued tweeting about the incident Saturday, even noting the police officer who responded was named Graham. He tweeted a photo of the two together.
That led to even more bad puns on social media.
“Hello officer, do you Gano who I am?” read one tweet.
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 7:04 AM with the headline "Carolina Panthers player’s minivan sideswiped at Chick-fil-A. Jokes erupt on Twitter."