Aretha Franklin’s Super Sized National Anthem Gave Fans Plenty Of Time For Great Reactions

There’s little doubt from anybody that Aretha Franklin knocked her rendition of The National Anthem out of the park ahead of Thursday’s opening Thanksgiving NFL game between the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings. Just a quick glance around online and you can see people heaping praise on the soul legend for her performance:

But with that praise comes a little good natured ribbing and fun, mostly at how long the anthem seemed to take. Even the folks at CBS seemed to have a little fun with it:

This echoes a lot of what people were sharing on Twitter, which worked out given the time it took Aretha to sing her anthem. They had a buffer before football got underway thanks to the Queen of Soul and they used it to the best opf their ability — or joked about using it with some great success:

https://twitter.com/fakevmart41/status/801842921653813248

https://twitter.com/Ratchetveli/status/801841859454767104

It’s all in fun, hopefully. As Dan Graziano points out, there’s no reason to complain about Aretha going long. She’s earned it at this point:

Besides, this anthem is far better than many of the shorter, horrible versions we’ve seen over the years. Nobody can do worse than Roseanne Barr or Carl Lewis when tackling the anthem.

(Via CBS / NFL)