Week 14 game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Los Angeles Chargers had an interesting moment. Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jalen Hurts made a mistake that was surprising for the fans, but also showed a vital glitch in the Monday Night Football broadcast’s animated version featuring Monsters Inc. characters.

Analyst Warren Sharp predicted a glitch in the animated broadcast, which proved to be right as he posted a video later.

“I TOLD YOU,” he wrote.

At the 8:31 mark in the second quarter, Hurts threw the ball to his receiver, AJ Brown. But defensive end Da’Shawn Hand intercepted it. As he ran forward, right guard Tyler Steen tackled him, forcing a fumble. The motion tracking was perfect until here. But it glitched the moment Hurts collected the ball. The screen froze and showed the Chargers’ players going to the sidelines. The cameras focused on the ball before The Claw (acting as referees) picked it up.

In the actual play, defensive tackle Jamaree Caldwell forced another fumble on the Eagles’ quarterback. In the end, the Chargers’ linebacker Troy Dye recovered the ball. However, the ESPN Funday Football broadcast stayed still. Even the highlights did not show the complete play.

These unforeseen moments revealed that there is still a need for a lot of improvement in the animated broadcast.

ESPN was unprepared for Jalen Hurts’ mistake

The animated broadcast for the children was telecast on ESPN2, Disney+, Disney Channel, and Disney XD. Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) represented the Philadelphia Eagles, and Sulley (voiced by John Goodman) was chosen for the Chargers, playing on their Monstropolis-set factory’s Cheer Floor. However, everyone was concerned about the motion tracking issues, which occurred again on Monday.

ESPN’s Michael “Spike” Szykowny claimed in an interview that when a similar glitch happened in the inaugural Funday Football Broadcast in 2023 featuring Toy Story, the team didn’t get frustrated. Instead, they started working on the issue immediately.

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He did not reveal what went wrong back then, but claimed it might be a case of tracking data stoppage. However, fans usually show love to ESPN’s tactics of pulling a young crowd to the sport despite the technical issues. For the Eagles game, Drew Carter served as the play-by-play announcer, and Dan Orlovsky was the game analyst for the broadcast.

Overall, Jalen Hurts’ mistake left the Birds fans fuming as the Chargers scored a field goal on that play and went ahead 10-7. He also broke the 47-year record of double turnovers on a single play. With such glitches on vital plays, the children definitely missed an amazing moment. However, it still shows the enormous commitment by ESPN to attract them to the sport.