ESPN's "Sam Darnold: Out Indefinitely" Graphic — Photoshopped billboard displaying the ESPN Sam Darnold mononucleosis graphic over a city skyline

ESPN's "Sam Darnold: Out Indefinitely" Graphic

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Published August 31, 2026

During ESPN's Monday Night Football broadcast on September 16th, 2019, the network aired a graphic of Jets quarterback Sam Darnold mean-mugging next to the words "Out Indefinitely: Mononucleosis." The absurd mismatch between Darnold's tough-guy pose and his kissing-disease diagnosis went viral within hours, spawning one of the defining NFL memes of the 2019 season.

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Overview

The graphic pairs a pre-recorded green-screen clip of Darnold pointing and glaring into the camera with a chyron that reads "Out Indefinitely: Mononucleosis"1. The comedic tension comes from the mismatch, a quarterback posing like he is about to run through a wall while the screen announces he has the kissing disease2. Announcer Joe Tessitore made it worse by soberly explaining that mono can cause spleen complications, which only sharpened the joke for viewers watching at home1.

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The still image quickly became an exploitable template, with people swapping the "Mononucleosis" text for other punchlines while keeping Darnold's intense point intact2. Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) built a browser-based generator that let anyone plug in custom words and receive a rendered video clip back, which turned the format into a repeatable joke rather than a single screenshot3.

Origin & Background

Platform
ESPN broadcast / Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
ESPN
Date
2019

On September 16th, 2019, ESPN's Monday Night Football broadcast the graphic during the New York Jets' 23-3 home loss to the Cleveland Browns1. Second-year Jets quarterback Sam Darnold had been diagnosed with mononucleosis earlier that week and was ruled out indefinitely, so ESPN used a pre-season green-screen shoot of him looking fierce as the visual for the injury update1.

The on-air moment was captured and shared on Twitter by video producer Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog), whose clip of the graphic in context became the reference version people passed around and remixed5.

How It Spread

Mockery started within minutes of the graphic airing and continued through the next day. Slate published a piece calling the image "The Culmination of 60 Years of Jets Football" and linked it to the franchise's Mark Sanchez "Butt Fumble" as another entry in the team's long history of on-field embarrassments1. Deadspin joked that the graphic was the only bright spot for New York in the 23-3 loss, given how badly the offense had played without Darnold2.

The format tipped into full exploitable status once fans started editing the text. Twitter user @MattBerry05 paired the graphic with a line from King of the Hill and racked up more than 1,200 retweets and 7,200 likes, one of the earliest widely shared edits2. Burke then released a generator on his site that produced custom video versions with user-supplied text, which Deadspin promoted in a follow-up post inviting readers to share their creations in the comments4.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically keeps Darnold's pointing pose and the "Out Indefinitely:" header, then swaps the mononucleosis line for a punchline of the user's choice, often a mundane grievance, a pop culture reference, or another Jets-related failure3. Burke's generator produced the animated video version people would share on Twitter, while static screengrabs work fine for image-macro style edits4.

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