It's tricky…

… to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that’s right on time.

If you’re like me, you’re at a cross-section of eras and cultures, where you know those lyrics are from Run D.M.C.’s 1986 hit, “It’s Tricky,” but you also know that there are a few pop-culture references that involve that song. One such reference is the 2001 snowboarding video game SSX Tricky. The other, as many of us recalled yesterday during the Minnesota Vikings’ game, comes from the 2004 hit movie “White Chicks,” starring Shawn and Marlon Wayans.

“This is a really weird way to start a sports column,” you might be saying to yourself right now. And I agree. But, thanks to Minnesota’s Josh Metellus, here we are, discussing the intersection of sports and pop culture — but it goes beyond that.

Kirk Cousins, who spent many a year at the helm of Minnesota’s offense, landed as the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons this season. A very roller coaster season has played out, and due to his zero touchdowns and eight interception in his last four games, he might find himself as a very-well paid backup the rest of the season. One of those interceptions came at the hands of his former team this past Sunday, and the touchdown celebration was one for the ages.

Early in the second quarter, safety Josh Metellus sniped a pass from Cousins and found the end zone afterwards. The defensive unit, including teammate Camryn Bynum, joined him for the celebration, where they recreated the infamous dance scene from “White Chicks” — arguably one of the best and most iconic scenes in the movie, especially if you’re near my ripe young age of 30. I believe it is only rivaled by Terry Crews’ rendition of “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton, or the “And for the lady, perhaps a salad?” scenes.

If you’re confused by any of this, I apologize, but a Google search will tell you everything you need to know about what I’m referring to. While the touchdown celebration itself is iconic, I’m not going to blabber on about how good it was. If you want to watch it, and you understand the reference, I’ll let you be the judge of how good it was. If you want to do none of those things, that’s also fine, and you’re safe to continue reading.

The celebration took the internet by storm, but it got me thinking — what are the best touchdown celebrations of all time? I know there are ones that are iconic, and I’ll list the ones that take up far too much space in my head, but which ones are the best?

There are generally two camps of football watchers: those who enjoy touchdown celebrations and believe they add to the game, and those that do not. I know exactly where I fall on this spectrum. I land further beyond the ‘add to the game’ camp, so far that I think even taunting should be allowed. I am all for big celebrations, annoying your opponents, and just playing the mental warfare side of the gridiron. I am 100 percent for that. I think it adds to the stakes, it makes football more fun, and we get more entertainment out of the games. That’s what football is about at the end of the day, right? Entertainment.

“They get paid to play the game and that’s it!” I hear all too often, which is usually followed up by, “They need to shut up and just play!”

This is especially bad when you’re a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, because their track record of Hines Ward, Antonio Brown, and now George Pickens has been a masterclass of on-field trolling, smack talking, and just doing whatever they wanted to (although Ward was much less drama-filled than the latter two, but he did hand out broken jaws and smack talk like the Easter Bunny handing out eggs.)

I don’t want them to just shut up. I want them to egg on their opponents, get under their skin, and win psychologically. Part of that comes with touchdown celebrations.

You’ve probably had a few players’ names in your head as you’ve read this. Terrell Owens, Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson, and even Barry Sanders. Two of those three changed the course of the game of football with their extravagent celebrations, but Sanders’ lack thereof doing anything spectacular was just as newsworthy as the others.

We can go back and look at the evolution of the touchdown dance. It started with spiking the ball and has now evolved — or devolved, depending on your stance — into full-team shindigs. Sanders, though, did the same thing for all of his 164 total touchdowns between college and the NFL — he simply handed the ball to the referee. No spiking, no dance, surely no using the end zone pylon to ‘putt’ the football as if it were a golf ball, like Hines Ward once did against the Philadelphia Eagles.

I believe a lack of celebration, just a robotic handing of the ball and a jog to the sidelines is more iconic than any dance could ever dream of. He just did what he needed to do, like it was a 9-5 job, and hustled back to his sidelines, awaiting his next opportunity.

But, that’s also very boring. I want flashy plays. These people are getting paid millions of dollars to be modern-day gladiators for our amusement. Did ancient gladiators not get to celebrate their triumphs? Surely they did. That’s why I’m a fan of Joe Horn pulling a cell phone out of the protective padding on the field goal post to ‘call’ his son in 2003.

His son, Jaycee Horn, is now an NFL player of his own caliber. Was it that ‘phone call’, which never actually took place and cost the elder Horn $30,000 that led to his son being a top cornerback prospect for the Panthers? I don’t know, but I’d sure hope so.

Was it Ochocinco signing memorobilia and stuffing it into a Santa sack, then tossing the items into the crowd after a touchdown that led to him being one of my favorite players to watch, even though he was a divisional rival to my Pittsburgh Steelers? Yes, yes it was.

Terrell Owens was an icon to my young, impressionable self. The passing game was just starting to become more popular in the NFL in the early-2000s, and players like him made the game that much more electrifying to watch. Kids today have Patrick Mahomes and Justin Jefferson. My era had Michael Vick and Owens. For every griddy that Jefferson hits, T.O. (as he was dubbed) stood at the Cowboys’ star at midfield. For every team celebration today, there is an obscure reference from a John Madden broadcast where someone else came up with a dance.

I’m not taking anything away from today’s game. There was a time where celebrations were outright banned, thanks to Roger Goodell, and it surely wasn’t helped by Antonio Brown ‘twerking’ after a score, or jumping in very inconvenient fashion into the goalpost. We’ve seen teams recreate a bobsled team from the Disney movie “Cool Runnings.” We’ve seen offensive linemen bench press their teammates. One time, Ezekiel Elliott jumped into the giant Salvation Army kettle at the back of Dallas’s end zone and ‘hid’ from his teammates. In similar fashion, Pittsburgh’s LeVeon Bell and JuJu Smith-Schuster even ‘played’ a game of hide-and-seek after a score.

To put it bluntly, celebrations are good for the game. They add to the camaraderie and cohesion of the team, they make it entertaining, and they even help draw kids to the sport (beyond what Mahomes, Jefferson, and if you’re my daughter, Taylor Swift are already doing.) The years when they couldn’t happen were just a bit more boring, they lacked enthusiasm, and scoring just wasn’t the same. Roger Goodell, if you’re reading this, don’t ever take them away again.