NFL fans divided over ‘Simpsons Funday Football’ alternate Bengals-Cowboys MNF broadcast - "Nobody asked this," "Awesome idea"

On December 9, fans of the Cincinnati Bengals and the Dallas Cowboys will see two alternate broadcasts for the game. ESPN announced that, during the Week 14 contest, they'll provide a fully animated Simpsons Funday Football feed on ESPN+ and Disney+, as well as the traditional Manningcast.

The Simpsons is one of the most successful TV shows in history. During ESPN's promo, they pictured Bart Simpson alongside an animation of Joe Burrow to support the Bengals, while Homer Simpson was next to Dak Prescott, supporting the Cowboys.

The idea of animated broadcasts has spread out throughout other companies. Nickelodeon is known for doing it with their NFL broadcasts through CBS parent Paramount Global. However, NFL fans are split in their opinions on how it's going to work out.

"The fact that they paired Dallas with Homer should tell you everything you need to know about the 2024 Dallas Cowboys", said one fan.

"The Cowboys are a cartoon team", joked another.

"The only way I can watch a Mike McCarthy x Mike Zimmer game without losing interest. Thank you, Simpsons", a third one added.

"Absolutely not. Keep this away from sports" was another response.

Shortly after, ESPN had more information from a release which said that the animation would be available for 145 markets. The "Atoms Stadium" in Springville will host the show.

Apart from Bengals-Cowboys, ESPN used animations to make a Toy Story broadcast in 2023

This is not the first time that the company is doing an animated sports broadcast. During the 2023 season, in a game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Jacksonville Jaguars, an alternate feed named Toy Story Sunday Funday had the game. It won three Sports Emmys and also became ESPN's highest-viewed Disney+ broadcast.

One key difference between these two situations involves the game picked. While the Falcons-Jaguars contest was part of the NFL International Series in 2023 (Jaguars won 23-7), the Bengals-Cowboys alternate broadcast will happen during a Monday Night Football game.

Both the Cincinnati Bengals (3-5) and the Dallas Cowboys (3-4) currently have losing records, but there's still a lot of time for them to recover.