Mike Tirico kept confusing Jalen Hurts for Dak Prescott

It was the first NFL game of the season for the broadcasters too, and even Mike Tirico had some rust to shake off when it came to identifying quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Jalen Hurts..

Thursday night’s season opener between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys was marred by a spitting incident and a significant weather delay.

After the lengthy break, Tirico restarted the game by repeatedly mistaking Jalen Hurts for Dak Prescott when play resumed in the third quarter.

No, your mind wasn’t playing tricks on you. If you woke up from the 65-minute lightning delay to see Hurts scrambling around in the third quarter, you also would have heard Tirico calling the Eagles quarterback “Prescott.”

“Prescott! Gets away from one. Resets and throws it…Prescott getting away from it, he’s got space. Prescott!” Tirico said during consecutive plays where Hurts was the quarterback.

Maybe a spotter got to him or maybe Tirico eventually realized the error. But after the third miscue, Tirico did correct himself to note it was Hurts who had the ball.

The case of mistaken identity was particularly jarring coming from Mike Tirico, who is about as prepared and polished as they come in terms of play-by-play voices, but it just proves everyone makes mistakes.

In Tirico’s defense, he was fresh off bantering with broadcast partner Cris Collinsworth to fill time during the weather delay. And they finished the break in action with new video from earlier in the game that showed the previously ejected Jalen Carter may have been inspired to spit by Prescott spitting first. So, Prescott was top of mind.

But as many football fans were half asleep on the couch, trying to wake themselves up from the hour-long buzzkill in the form of a weather delay, seeing Hurts and hearing “Prescott” was just a little confusing.