Booger McFarland

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About

Booger McFarland is a former professional American Football player and current ESPN color commentator who gained infamy online after several gaffes during his time as commentator for Monday Night Football.

History

Booger McFarland, born Anthony Darelle McFarland,^[1] was born December 18th, 1977 in Louisiana. McFarland played defensive tackle for LSU between 1995 and 1998 before being drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1999 draft. During his professional playing career, he won two Super Bowl championships, one with the Bucs and another with the Indianapolis Colts. He joined ESPN's Monday Night Football broadcast team in the 2018 season.

Online Presence

McFarland is active on Twitter,^[6] where his account has over 137,000 followers.

Color Commentary Gaffes

McFarland joined ESPN's Monday Night Football for the 2018 season, where his career has been marred by several gaffes and comments that have generated irritation from fans.^[2]^[3] In the 2018 season, ESPN attempted a feature wherein McFarland would be in the "'Boogermobile'" to explain a play from the point of view of someone standing on the line of scrimmage.^[4] This resulted in people creating parodies wherein people would alter where McFarland was. For example, Twitter user @nick_pants tweeted a clip of McFarland in front of the music video for Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles," gaining over 2,400 retweets and 10,000 likes (shown below).

In the 2019 season, McFarland again generated jokes from fans after appearing to draw a penis on screen while analyzing a play^[5] (shown below).

The moment led fans to joke that the gaffe was typical of McFarland. @DailyBooger tweeted that the moment proved McFarland was "a hell of an artist," gaining over 130 retweets and 500 likes (shown below, left). Football writer Matt Harmon called the moment "Peak Booger," gaining over 820 retweets and 5,200 likes (shown below, right).