No awards show would be complete without some awkward technical difficulties and that’s exactly what happened to Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford at the ESPYS on Wednesday night.
Stafford walked onto the stage with track and field star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone to present an award. However, the teleprompter suffered a momentary freeze. And while Stafford may be able to improvise on the football field when the play breaks down, he wasn’t quite ready to do the same on the ESPYS stage.
Thankfully it was a quick fix, but still led to this awkward moment.
“Can we work on the prompter there? We got a black and white screen. Sorry about that, America.”
The ESPY’s were not quite ready for Matthew Stafford and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s presentation. pic.twitter.com/24hJqevCpv
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 17, 2025
“Can we work on the prompter there? We got a black and white screen. Sorry about that, America,” Stafford said. That was followed by some nervous laughter from the crowd before things proceeded as scheduled. At least he didn’t fair quite as badly as Frank Drebin impersonating Phil Donohue.
Stafford also did one step better than Druski, who left his envelope at his seat before presenting an award.
Druski: “I am a little bit of a dumbass. I did not bring the envelope out here. But I left it in my seat…” #ESPYspic.twitter.com/q7TzMGbk3E
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 17, 2025
Aside from those brief snafus, it was a memorable night at the ESPYS. Shane Gillis and his much talked about monologue touched on almost everyone in sports, politics, and pop culture from Caitlin Clark, Bill Belichick, and Aaron Rodgers to Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And Lee Corso received a well deserved tribute for his many years at ESPN ahead of his retirement from College GameDay.