So, a new football season is coming soon and with that the excitement of watching games on a TV set on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The beauty of the football schedule is its intimate yet expansive nature from the beginning of September(or in the middle of August) to the frosty days of winter in January and February. Fans are drawn in and it’s hard to get them to not watch football unless they are ticked off about their team’s prospects or have more important things occurring in their lives(attending church sermons, helping do chores for loved ones, attending their children’s special events while games are occurring, etc.). Networks that are nationally televised(now being viewed through streaming services that seem to have higher combined costs than cable/satellite television services) are a blessing to us all during football season. No regional/local blackout b.s, unless you don’t have access to Sunday Ticket and have to go to a casino sportsbook or bar to view your favorite team playing. So the games turn on and it’s three hours of smashmouth running and tackling, excelling passing and receiving and celebration dances in the end zone for touchdowns or interceptions.

There is one thing that has become so important to the viewing fan’s experience over the years on television and that is the scoreboard displayed on screen by the networks who broadcast games. After years of dealing with temporary pop-ups of the score and game clock and having to either remember what the score is or have the broadcasting crew tell them, fans have been spoiled rotten with scorebugs constantly on-screen reminding them what the score is, how much time is on the game clock and which quarter is occurring. That way, people know when halftime is near or when the game is nearly over. This has been the case with all sports, but football is one of the sports that progressed to showing the score of a game on-screen as well as showing replay footage of plays that occurred just seconds beforehand or earlier on in the game. Replays being shown are really the only time when scorebugs are not shown. But when the game is occurring on a mostly live feed, the scorebug is right there. It started on the top of the screen, which was something not everyone could discern well with standard definition TVs. But with the advent of high definition and the affordability of flatscreen TVs being a thing, scorebugs started moving to the bottom part of the screen in the mid-2010s. ESPN and NBC did this first(in the 2000s) and then FOX and CBS followed suit.

For the past decade, all scorebugs have gone through changes to look more “modernized” for the year they were installed and that involves technological advances with inventions such as the smartphone allowing for games to be streamed on mobile devices. The trend that usually was followed was that a new scorebug for the NFL season(and pretty much any sport) would be unveiled for the beginning of the season. However, the networks who broadcast NFL games went a different route and started unveiling new scorebugs for their football coverage when they broadcasted the final game of the entire season in the Super Bowl. Thus, everyone’s eyes have to immediately adjust at the beginning of the most important game of the year(for fans whose teams are playing in the Big Game and aren’t present at the stadium where the game is occurring) to a new scorebug from whichever network is broadcasting it. The only instance in the past decade where a network didn’t unveil a new graphics package(along with a scorebug) for their Super Bowl broadcast was FOX Sports in Feb. 2017, when they showed Super Bowl LI to the nation. That was really the final game where a scorebug featured on the top of the screen was shown to audiences of millions of football fans throughout the world. At the beginning of the 2017 season, FOX revealed their new bottom-screen scorebug, which was bland and showed the names of each of the teams playing in a game they broadcasted rather than the team’s logo or abbreviation(based on where they are located). FOX Sports has broadcasted three Super Bowls since 2019 and they have unveiled a new graphics package for each of them. The first two for the 54th and 57th editions of the Big Game were eerily similar with a more smaller scorebug at the bottom of the screen and the logos of the two teams competing against each other shown. The game clock and play clock were near to each other, along with the down marker(for example, 1st & 10) on each play.

With these graphics, FOX had slam dunk coverage and they were easily viewable for most fans. Graphics designers are usually hired by networks to create new scoreboards and graphics for their televised broadcasts. The goal would seem to be to make them more “viewable” and “cool-looking” for audiences of fans, especially those with eyesight issues wrought on by degradation of foresight in older age or naturally for young folks who need to wear contact lenses or eyeglasses to see effectively. But sometimes a graphics package can be steered in the wrong direction and sadly FOX, in hosting its second Super Bowl in three years, made a fatal mistake in redesigning their graphics package in a radical way that most fans probably don’t approve of for many reasons. On Feb. 9, 2025, Super Bowl LIX between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles occurred and with that game FOX decided to unveil their new scorebug and graphics package in this game, continuing a streak that every national TV network that the NFL has broadcasting contracts with has followed to a tee for the past several years. And oh boy, it was bad. Very bad. It was basically a stripped-down version of their old scoreboard with a retro look to what scorebugs looked like in the old days of broadcasting games, a temporary blip on the screen before returning to action. It definitely could have worked in the 1980s, but FOX didn’t have NFL coverage until 1994 and most scorebugs have always been solidified with some sort of background with a color that looks good on TV(black, white or a mixture of colors). But for the modern age of 2025 broadcasting, it looked like absolute crap. An eyesore to say the least. This is just my opinion by the way. Other fans might have a positive view of it due to the bigger font of the play clock and quarter marker along with the three dashes that represent the three timeouts that each teams has for one half. But there is a lot of criticism towards FOX’s decision to go full-blown opaque for its new scorebug. It’s basically what a scorebug would look like if HDTV existed in, say, the 1980s decade. A total setback in graphics design editing. Abstract simplicity is considered to be a savvy art style these days I guess and FOX got that memo and was like “Let’s try this with our NFL coverage(and maybe even other sports coverage)!” Uh, earth to FOX, probably not the best idea for this day and age. I guess they didn’t hear and went ahead with it. And oh boy, it stunk. Big block letters with a colored background for both teams’(the KC Chiefs and PHI Eagles) parts of the scorebug, but the rest of the scorebug was completely stripped bare of a background. Whose idea was it to do that? Employee confidentiality is an important part of working in the “private sector” and apparently broadcast TV networks are no exception to that. Best for it to stay that way because with social media these days, people can be doxxed and have some nasty messages sent their way. That was the case even before social media became the techno-Goliath that it is today, but it’s way worse now. Anyway, back to criticizing this scorebug that FOX had for only one game(and it should’ve stayed that way).

Another odd fixture of the SB59 scorebug was that the play clock was distanced well away from the game clock. The only time where that feature is notable is when the team on offense doesn’t get the snap off in time and a delay of game penalty(or timeout) is called. I guess FOX was like “Most people aren’t paying attention to the play clock anyways since they’re on their phones keeping track of other games or sending a message to one of their contacts, so let’s shift the play clock away from the game clock and hope not enough people notice!” Well, there were a lot of people who noticed and with YouTube as a place where you can expose baloney like this, there was one video creator whose content is tailored towards odd events in the past and present regarding the NFL and its teams that went full scorched-earth on FOX for its dumb decision to create a scorebug that is literally the visual manifestation of Satan’s presence on God’s green Earth. The sports-content streaming channel JG9 had a big video back in February about the new scorebug for FOX and all its discrepancies. Especially the play clock being away from the game clock and over the area of the scorebug that shows which team has possession of the ball. This move forces viewers to move their eyes on a bigger screen in order to see how much time is left on the play clock and that can be relevant when the game clock is ticking down to the two-minute warning of either half or overtime. Apparently, FOX sports executives thought that was irrelevant and decided to go forward with their dumb new scorebug anyways. What a freaking joke! Except it’s not! It’s real and will be a pain in the peepers for any fan who is watching a game on FOX during the regular season this year and in the next few years due to the new Super Bowl broadcast rotation that has ESPN/ABC back in the fold. So, it’s now a four-year Lazy Susan for each big national network to wait their turn to broadcast their next Super Bowl. How long it stays like that, I don’t know. For all we know, Netflix or Amazon Prime could join the SB sweepstakes. Enough people are cutting the cord, so what good is cable anymore? That would basically make the Super Bowl a pay per view event for anyone who isn’t on either of those two big streaming platforms. Free trial with a cost coming later if you subscribe less than a week before the Big Game! Golly!

So, after six months of letting these emotions sit and praying that FOX would change back to its previous scorebug I was wondering around and saw that FOX had a preseason broadcast of a game between the Buffalo Bills and the Chicago Bears. That was how I found out that FOX made some edits and tweaks to its scorebug, but it mostly remained the same from what they had for SB59. Instead of the block letters for a team’s marker, they went back to using the team’s logos. Except with the opaque scoreboard, there’s no visible background for these logos to be shown on. That means the logos of each team are like digital stickers being placed on an invisible scorebug. Wow, that’s so genius! What more could we ask for? Yeah, how about a return to sanity and an actual background for a scoreboard? Please, FOX. You’ve already screwed around enough. At least you saw one flaw in that scorebug of yours, but not enough to completely scrap it. I guess once you let the graphic designer genie out of the bottle, there’s no going back. Stiff-neckedness and stubborn spirits are the content of too many human hearts. Thus, it is perfectly on display with the stupid FOX scorebug that we must all suffer through for the next four seasons of football. And now with no colored background for a team’s logos, it’s a more stripped-down scorebug than we previously saw in February. Now, every team’s logo will be like a video game icon to click on when you are watching games being broadcasted by crews featuring Kevin Burkhardt, Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, Erin Andrews, Kristina Pink, Pam Oliver, Kevin Kugler, Mark Sanchez, Greg Olson and last(but not least) Tom Brady. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman sure look smart now for bailing over to ESPN for Monday night football coverage. Look at what their former employer decided to do a few years after they left. Let’s hope that abhorrent design doesn’t become mainstream and spreads to other networks broadcasting other sports, especially those that are occurring in elements such as rain, snow, sleet and mighty strong winds.

On the topic of weather, let’s also point out that there are a couple of “snow games” per year that occur in the NFL. With this scorebug, that means there could be issues of visibility for it(unless proper edits are made) of seeing the giant white numbers that tell the story of a game(the score, what quarter is occurring, the amount of timeouts a team has, etc) being blocked out by something else that is white. Let’s say that there is a “snow game” in December at Lambeau Field or Lincoln Financial Field or FedEx Field or MetLife Stadium or Soldier Field and we need to see the score. What is FOX going to do with the invisible scorebug when there are conditions on the field that prevent us from seeing the yard markers and first-down line? What are they gonna do? Hope they figure it out, cuz there might be a good chance of snow for any outdoor stadium in the great white north(also includes some occasional cross-flex AFC games) and eastern seaboard in December and January. Another odd thing is that FOX decided to keep their “mural graphics”, which have the players in drawed-out form like their comic book heroes or something like that. For their Super Bowl broadcast in New Orleans, they had Patrick Mahomes and other notable players have their mural graphic forms pop up on the screen and have no background to them. So, if you’re showing stats on your no-background scorebug for specific players, are you just going to have their cartoonish forms pop up on screen as the play-clock is counting down? That will be another distraction that will confuse those watching, especially the oldheads that didn’t have any of this eye candy to deal with back in the good old days. What about when you’re showing graphics on a specific statistical category that a player is involved in and the scorebug isn’t being shown? Are you going to give background service to that? If so, then why not add one to the flippin’ scorebug? How stupid can you be? Not sure if the broadcasters will have to read off it, but if they do, oh boy. They will have to adjust, as they always do when they have a new scorebug every few years in their long careers. And what now about the playclock? Are you going to continue using a team-colored background for that or are you just gonna merge it in right under the game clock(where it should be)? So many questions, very few answers. We will all know more come Opening Sunday, on Sept. 7 of this year, for FOX games. FOX might have a more entertaining pregame show and fun sideshow features, but this scorebug move might have them lose a lot of their viewers. They will just flock over to CBS, where great players such as Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, T.J Watt, Myles Garrett and others play on anyways. And they have a scorebug that you can quickly absorb in your mind if your attention flitters to your phone or some other thing that distracts you. For FOX, you are gonna have to pay attention or you could really get a headache if you don’t focus enough on the game. Thank goodness for keeping track of games on smartphone apps, right? Seeing FOX games on the RedZone channel will also be a pain in the butt, unless there’s a “multi-box” and thus there will be a clear scorebug underneath the FOX game(s) occurring. But FOX screwed themselves on this one and they will regret it in due time.

I am only ranting about this personally because I am a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, an NFC team who has the majority of their games broadcast on FOX. At least to start out this season, the Vikings will have their first five games broadcast on other networks due to the amount of standalone games they have in the early part of the season and one lucky broadcast on CBS in Week 3 against the Cincinnati Bengals. Then, after their Week 6 bye, they will have eight of their next ten games broadcast on FOX Sports and there will be an unclear background for the Norseman logo to be on. I used to look forward to seeing Vikings games on FOX, now I slightly dread it because of their stupid new scorebug. There will be pop-up drawing graphics of J.J McCarthy, Justin Jefferson, Aaron Jones and any other offensive Vikings that have significant in-game performances worth glossing over(for fantasy and gambling purposes mostly). There will be other NFC teams that have to mostly suffer through this and AFC teams on an occasional basis when they go away from CBS broadcasts for at least a couple of their games. I have another conspiracy theory behind this ugly scorebug and it might sound crazy, but also good to anyone who is a “Patriots hater”. This was Tom Brady’s way at getting revenge on FOX and the NFL for screwing him over on a couple of different instances.

Now, Brady signed that long contract with FOX Sports when he retired from the NFL(for good, not when he teased us all after the 2021 season) and he made his debut broadcasting on FOX last season. Being on the main broadcast team with Kevin Burkhardt, Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi, Brady was now the main color analyst for FOX’s NFL coverage. Being in the same role that John Madden and Troy Aikman had been in for several years previously, Brady was kind of good at times when it came to calling the game from his perspective as a nearly quarter-century veteran of pro football. But it seemed like he implemented himself way too much into broadcasts and made things about his previous past experiences. Brady is getting paid a lot of money to do this “job” that FOX offered him and he is enjoying every second of it. But he’s also in an awkward position when it comes to being a partial owner of a team that is barely shown on FOX broadcasts throughout the season. Brady is a partial owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, but he had to wait for the league office to approve his involvement of owning a stake in a franchise while being a broadcaster of NFL games. If Tom tried to be a partial owner of the Patriots or Buccaneers, the league would never approve of it. But the team that got screwed by the “Tuck Rule Game” in the 2001 Divisional Playoff in Brady’s first ever playoff start, sure, why not? It helps that the Raiders are currently a sucky enough team where they would not even qualify for being on America’s Game of the Week broadcasts that Brady usually does. So, even when the Raiders are going to have a game broadcast on FOX, Tom Brady will not be on it. That can certainly eliminate some stigma and awkwardness felt by fans of the Silver and Black who still hate Brady and felt like their team could have ended a two-decade long dynasty before it even got started.

Well, that’s only one minor grievance that TB12 himself(sorry Bradshaw, you’re old news) has against the league. How about all of them? Just kidding. You all know about DeflateGate and SpyGate and all that other taboo stuff that Tommy Boy was involved in with the Patriots. But what did FOX ever do to Tom Brady, besides not broadcast most of his regular season games? He did play four of his Super Bowls on FOX as a New England QB, winning three of them(Super Bowls 36, 39 and 51). But the one he lost was Super Bowl XLII against the New York Giants. The Patriots could have been the ultimate unbeaten champion, but were taken down by a 9-7 wild card underdog with Eli Manning at QB. A 17-14 defeat wrought on by a Giants defense that had Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora as pass rushing nightmares for Brady and the Pats’ offensive line. Also by some historic catch made by David Tyree that setup the game-winning score. That had something to do with it as well. But Brady was beaten on that night in Feb. 2008 in Glendale, Ariz and he never got to get his vengeance on the Giants, who beat him in a rematch four years later in Super Bowl XLVI. So, Tom had to find a way to take out his rage and get revenge. Apparently having three additional rings with the Patriots and one with the Buccaneers wasn’t enough to satisfy the GOAT’s spirit. Now, Tommy has his perfect revenge on FOX and the NFL with the new scorebug that FOX is displaying for their NFL coverage. Wow, what a grand scheme to be executed by the greatest player(or cheater) in football history. How marvelous! Who could have possibly guessed that this would be a thing? Brady has a lot of authority after all and he must have played some part in stripping down the FOX scorebug so much that it reminded him of his former marriage to the beautiful Brazilian body model Gisele Bündchen.

Tom Brady has been a pain in the booty for so many NFL fan bases and now that he’s retired, many people thought he would go away. Nope, he returns to ruin the airwaves on Sunday afternoons from September to January(and sometimes February) with his minimalist commentary now being aided by a minimalist scorebug. Way to go, Tom. You screwed yourself and your employer in the process. Nothing says revenge like deploying a plot to allow a crappy scorebug and graphics package to debut on your first Super Bowl broadcast. You now have 11 appearances in the Big Game, with a chance for more if FOX doesn’t have the balls to fire you down the road. Oh boy, you sure got them good, Tommy. You really aren’t going away anytime soon(he looks marvelous for someone who just turned 48 years old, so he might live to be a centenarian at this pace) and you will continue to live rent-free in millions of peoples’ heads. All because you are the GOAT. Pretty soon you’ll have the perfect birthday present in being enshrined on Hall of Fame weekend(which usually falls around Aug. 3, Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr’s b-day) in a few years. The Summer Olympics in Los Angeles will have nothing on your HOF enshrinement, assuming you will be a first ballot selection. Why wouldn’t you be? All the scandals and adultery notwithstanding, Tom is a perfect gentleman. He should have no problems getting into Canton as soon as 2028 AD. No problems at all, unless he turns into a psychopath like O.J Simpson. Yikes!

This roast of Tom Brady and FOX was fun, right? All about letting out anger and translating it onto the typing pad. Hopefully FOX Sports has second thoughts about this ugly scorebug that I will display an example of below and they can change it enough to satisfy the needs of the fans while bringing an entertaining product onto people’s screens on Sundays in the fall and winter. They better not try this with college football or there will really be an uproar. Pretty soon, the college season will kick off and we shall find out the answer to that mystery. As of now, FOX will have this graphics package in the playoffs as well, so fingers crossed it doesn’t cause a hex on any NFC teams, including my Vikings who are trying to win their first playoff game since beating the Saints in overtime in Jan. 2020. I plead to God that this scorebug will be eliminated eventually, but if I’m doing that, then I should actually be attending church services. Perhaps this graphics flex will force people to turn off their TVs and go praise the Lord more often on Holy Sundays. The Sabbath is sacred after all and has been way too desecrated by things of the world. Whoever is a friend of the world will be consumed by it in the end. Some words, coming from the most confusing author in the Bible(St. James the Lesser). Too much of us love stuff in the world, like football games, and we don’t love Jesus Christ and his followers enough. Maybe this is a sign from God that we should turn away from these innate things that only satisfy us for a period of time while not providing any long term growth for us. Hopefully we will all be blessed and forgiven for our sinful behavior and actions in the end, and attending church sermons won’t do anything to change who we are as people. Only the written word of God and his followers can inflict such change in our hearts, if we’re only willing to accept it. Amen! Now let’s get to some football in a few weeks!