Good Morning Football uses AI robot Axel Credit: NFL Network
By Drew Lerner on

For as much as AI has been seeping into our everyday lives recently, people remain very skeptical.

Whether it is the AI-generated search results you get when asking Google a simple question, or the uncanny valley experience of looking at some AI slop image, people just aren’t yet ready for the AI takeover. So when you bring the technology into parts of their lives where there is truly no reason to have it, hands will be thrown.

NFL Network’s flagship show Good Morning Football learned that the hard way on Monday. The beloved morning program kicked off prediction week on Labor Day, with the NFL season beginning in just three days. However, host Jamie Erdahl and analysts Kyle Brandt and Manti Te’o brought a friend along to help make those predictions: their AI robot friend named Axel.

“Alright, Axel. I said you have charisma,” Brandt began. “Axel, are you ready to roll?! Are you ready to make some picks?!” he asked the robot.

And after an uncomfortably long pause for the AI chatbot to catch up with the conversation, Axel replied.

“Let’s goooooo!” the robot said.

Fans didn’t exactly take well to the experiment after Good Morning Football posted the clip to social media.

Let’s just say, Axel went over about just as well as Fox’s experiment with hologram Tom Brady last year. That is to say, just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

About Drew Lerner

Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.

View all posts by Drew Lerner