Fans rip FOX following Mark Sanchez’s departure over ‘Great Depression’-style audio during Panthers-Jets game

When the hosted the in Week 7, viewers expected a regular Sunday broadcast but delivered something else entirely. What was supposed to be a routine telecast quickly turned into a soundscape from another era, leaving fans wondering if they had accidentally tuned into a 1940s radio show instead of a 2025 NFL game.

Technical chaos continues to plague FOX after Mark Sanchez’s departure

FOX’s broadcast troubles didn’t begin this week. Following Mark Sanchez’s controversial exit from the network earlier this season, FOX scrambled to reorganize its commentator lineup. Veteran duo Mark Schlereth and Chris Myers have since been filling in, but the problems go well beyond who’s in the booth.


For the second week in a row, audio malfunctions disrupted live coverage with muffled commentary, glitchy sound, and what fans described as “tin can” audio. During the previous week’s Jacksonville-Seattle matchup, viewers heard one frustrated broadcaster admit, “I can’t hear the producer,” as production chaos unfolded midgame. It appears little has improved since then.

Even insiders are baffled. As Seattle-based journalist Mookie Alexander put it, “this was a pretty big game and the production values were a step above public access… The audio cut out, the video froze, it was just terrible to watch.”

Fans roast FOX for turning modern NFL coverage into a ‘radio broadcast from the 1940s’

NFL fans didn’t hold back online. “Why does the audio on the Panthers Jets game sound like it’s from the Great Depression?” one viewer asked on X, while another added, “We doing a Tin Can broadcast for the Panthers vs Jets game today, Fox? Audio sounds like it’s straight from the 60s.”


Others leaned into the humor, joking that the distorted audio gave the game a “70s feel”, though most agreed it made the experience unwatchable.

While some brushed it off as nostalgia, the overall sentiment was clear: fans expect better from a network as established as FOX. Technical issues might be common in broadcasting, but recurring malfunctions during consecutive NFL weekends have sparked a bigger conversation, about whether the network’s infrastructure is falling behind in an era where even small streaming platforms deliver flawless live coverage.

Also Read: Is Mark Sanchez broadcasting any NFL games this weekend? What to know about his career after the Indianapolis incident

If FOX doesn’t fix its lingering production issues soon, viewers might just start missing the days of static-filled AM radio, for all the wrong reasons.

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