People hated ESPN's yellow down-and-distance graphic, so the network changed it

Frank Schwab

How many times in the first quarter of “Monday Night Football” were you fooled by the yellow down-and-distance graphic in the bottom right of ESPN’s screen?

Someone at ESPN didn’t think this through. Since Fox first started putting the score on the screen all the time in 1994 (yes kids, old folks lived in a world in which you had to remember the score because it wasn’t pinned on the bottom of our screens), networks have gotten in the habit of alerting us when there’s a penalty flag on the play. It usually would pop up as a bright yellow graphic where the score is listed.

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In the first haalf, ESPN had that yellow tag on all the time, even when there was not a flag on the play.

Give ESPN credit, because it didn’t need a day of reflection and meetings to get it right. It was changed after halftime, back to a normal black background and white lettering.

Social media was not happy with yellow graphic

All you had to do in the first half was watch Saints receiver Michael Thomas make a catch, see the yellow on the bottom right, think it was coming back ... no, no, just first-and-10 on ESPN’s screen. Ugh.

Social media was not impressed.

At least it lasted only one half. ESPN quickly got it right.

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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab

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