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PEYTON, ELI AND GUESTS
Richard Deitsch of The Athletic with his thoughts on the Peyton and Eli “Manning MegaCast”:
It’s generally a useless exercise to review the opening night of anything in entertainment. The creative process isn’t linear. It changes forms and what we see on a show’s first day more often than not bears little resemblance to the mature product. Unfortunately, we live in a time where judgment moves faster than Elaine Thompson-Herah.
ESPN’s “Manning MegaCast,” which ran on ESPN2 last night as an additive play to the main Monday Night Football broadcast, started off far too hot. A hard watch. There was way too much going on for viewers early on between the Mannings emulating Raiders coach Jon Gruden on the headset, to frenzied commentary on plays, to the actual game being barely visible in the background on at least one shot. You could not blame a viewer for reaching for the remote to switch to the friendly confines of the traditional broadcast on ABC and ESPN. Too much juice.
Things slowed down later in the first quarter, which was good. The brothers were at their best for viewers when we saw them on the left or right side of a screen in two small boxes with the game playing on the other 3/4 of the screen. That made me actually hear the knowledge the Mannings were imparting against the play I was watching on-screen. Peyton and Eli have easy chemistry, which is always a huge part of the sports studio show battle. Eli mocking Peyton for having the Colts fans trained when the team was on offense was amusing. They interacted well with Charles Barkley, who is always a great guest.
The second quarter was when I started to feel I was getting quality insight as a viewer, including a discussion on the NFL’s roster number changes. “I think it’s great letting these guys wear different numbers,” Peyton said. “Let them have fun. Let them wear single digits. Let them wear their college numbers, their high-school numbers. If they are having fun, the game is going to be fun to watch.” Second-quarter guest Ray Lewis worked very well, with the three players having different POVs on what they saw on screen. Peyton asked smart questions of Lewis, where he could guide viewers on what to look for on defense. Both Peyton and Lewis revealed they recruited the other to play for their franchises and Lewis discussed how he treated his own quarterbacks. The breaks to commercial also started getting much cleaner, though with Lewis, he was in mid-sentence as they went to break. The second quarter ended with a fire alarm going off at the studio, which explained the surreal look on Eli’s face.
The final quarter and overtime was when I really enjoyed the broadcast the most as it started with Eli and Peyton explaining in detail about Lamar Jackson’s passing, footwork and what his receivers needed to do to help him out. They got a great contribution from Russell Wilson, who blended easily with the Mannings in the fourth quarter and stuck around for what turned out to be a wild overtime. The trio had a great running discussion (and great facial reactions) as something truly crazy happened with the Raiders’ thinking they had won in overtime only to see a Derek Carr interception off a deflection shortly thereafter.
More from Stephen Holder of The Athletic:
With Peyton chiming in from Denver and Eli back east in New Jersey, the brothers did a running commentary on the broadcast. But if you were looking for standard-fare NFL viewing, this was not that.
This was Peyton and Eli unplugged: Revealing embarrassing childhood stories (did Eli really run a 6.2-second 40-yard dash in middle school?), talking over the referee as penalties were announced and telling an endless stream of stories. Lots and lots of stories.
The dialogue shifted from brutal honesty to absolute hilarity.
It began with a dagger. On the first play from scrimmage, Peyton said of the Raiders, “Here we go. This is gonna tell me everything I need to know.”
When quarterback Derek Carr’s pass to tight end Darren Waller fell incomplete, Eli quipped, “What does that tell you?”
Peyton’s response: “6-11. 6-11.”
Ouch.
Peyton was particularly true to form in this format. He only knows one way to do things, be it playing quarterback or writing a Hall of Fame speech. In everything he does, he goes all out. Here, that meant getting into character as Raiders coach Jon Gruden, donning a Raiders visor and a mock headset and calling in plays to his pretend quarterback, Eli.
“OK, bronco right, tight, shorty flash,” he bellowed.
Eli then pretends to call the play in the huddle. Before he can finish spitting out the word salad of a call, Peyton interjects when he sees the Baltimore defense in an unexpected coverage.
“Hey! It’s Cover 2! Run 58 freedom! 58 freedom!” he yelled.
At this point, it’s clear: “Monday Night Football” is completely off the rails — in the best way possible.
But it gets better.
Soon after, Peyton goes into full analyst mode, busting out a whiteboard to break down a Raiders play.
“Here’s that play we were talking about, E,” Peyton began. “Heavy right bunch, three guys heavy, big tight ends in a bunch. Velcro is the ‘V’ coming across, ‘H flick’ (means) you’re gonna flick the running back and get him out of the way. Eighty-two is the pass protection. The line’s got the four down (defensive linemen) and the linebacker. ‘All go’ is the route, everybody going deep. ‘Switch’ tells the U and the Y to switch releases and then we’re tagging ‘X’ on the under.’ Look at all the verbiage before the ball is even snapped.”
Luckily for the viewers, there would not be a quiz.
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In the second quarter, after Jackson threw a laser of a touchdown pass, Peyton responded, “I would not know much about the tight spiral. I invented the wobbly touchdown.”
Eli wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass.
“How many touchdowns do you think you threw on a wobbly duck? I’m saying over half,” he said.
Finally, Eli — prompted by the Raiders’ home crowd being annoyingly loud when the Vegas offense was on the field — recalled how Peyton demanded silence from Indianapolis fans when he was under center for the Colts.
“Peyton had that stadium so well-trained,” Eli said. “When he was on offense, no one was allowed to talk. I swear the fans would get fined if they, like, asked for a drink. ‘Hey, can I get a beer?’ It’s like, ‘Hey! Be quiet. Wait for the defense to order your beer!’ You were not allowed to say anything. He could whisper and the receivers could hear him.”
There also was a string of intermittent guests throughout the evening, from basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley to former Ravens great Ray Lewis, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson.
Barkley does what he always does: Entertain. To no surprise, a chummy, trash-talking format suits him well.
His rooting interest in the game was based on his, um, wagering.
“I took the Raiders at 3.5,” he said, referring to the point spread. “I got even last night with the Rams, so I’m playing with free money tonight … Monday night is gravy. I got it all back on the Rams. They were giving nine and they made me look good.”
Peyton asked Barkley whether he’d played any football. The answer was yes — sort of.
“I played one day of football,” Barkley said. “Because of bad coaching, they put me on the O-line and I quit after one day. I think if they’d have made me a linebacker or a tight end, somebody like that, I could play. But I don’t want to be hit every play. That offensive line, that’s like a real job.”
Lewis’ appearance allowed for a little retrospective for Eli. He had a very, well, memorable first meeting with the Ravens in December 2004.
Eli told the story of being under center, in one of his first starts.
“I get up there and I’m saying, ‘Number 52’s the mike,’” he said, referring to Lewis. “You were like, ‘I’m not the mike, he’s the mike.’ I said, ‘Wait, Ray’s right. The other guy is the mike.’ Then Ed Reed starts saying, ‘Hey, I wanna be the mike.’”
They were totally screwing with the young quarterback, who likely didn’t realize he was the butt of the joke. He likely figured it out by day’s end, when he saw the stat sheet.
“I had a 0.0 rating,” Eli said. “It’s hard to do.”
Here is the take from Jimmy Traina of SI.com:
ESPN finally got Peyton Manning on their air calling a Monday Night Football game—and it was a success.
The Worldwide Leader has said all along that Peyton and Manning aren’t calling 10 games on ESPN2 this season as a replacement for the main broadcast, called by Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Brian Grise, on ESPN. The brothers are there to provide an alternative option and that’s what they did perfectly last night in the Raiders’ 33–27 overtime win over the Ravens.
Aside from the first five minutes of the broadcast, which were pretty cringing, things couldn’t have gone better. The best parts of the show were when Peyton and Eli bagged the schtick, didn’t have any guests and just talked football.
I’m not opposed to fun and nonsense, but that works best in moderation when there’s a game taking place. The game can’t just be in the background.
As the night went along, the brothers became more focused on the game and the show improved tremendously.
They told inside stories, they busted each other’s chops and they gave viewers some outstanding insight on a variety of topics.
For example, both Peyton and Eli made it clear that there’s no such thing as halftime adjustments; they’re just a myth. Great stuff.
They especially shined in the fourth quarter and overtime when they were joined by Russell Wilson. They dished out strategy while also sounding like regular fans who couldn’t believe all the crazy things that were happening on the field.
There were some oddities along the way. Both guys were openly rooting for both teams, which was amusing yet weird/confusing to hear during a game. The cutaways to commercials were jarring, with both guys getting cut off throughout the night, but that can be fixed.
During the game, I tweeted that the show could use a host/traffic cop. But once the brothers settled in, I wasn’t so sure if they needed one.
The most comfortable and appealing parts of the broadcast was when it was just Peyton and Eli talking about what they were seeing on the screen.
Part of me wonders if I ended up enjoying the alternate feed because I didn’t have a ton of interest in the matchup itself. Would I watch Peyton and Eli for three hours if, for example, the Chiefs were playing the Patriots? Probably not. The nuts and bolts of a game telecast, such as timeouts, penalties, player identification, were not covered or discussed by Peyton and Eli throughout the game and for a big game, I’d want those things.
Would I check in on Peyton and Eli from time to time during a big game? Absolutely.
But that’s the beauty of the Peyton-Eli Show—it’s there to be an alternate experience and it will certainly come in handy when the Monday Night game is boring, which, unfortunately for the Worldwide Leader, is more times than not.
For years, ESPN has wanted and needed better games for Monday Night Football. With the NFL’s needing to take care of Sunday night, Thursday night and Sunday’s late window before ESPN, it’s impossible for the network to get an A+ slate of games.
Now, they don’t need them because even with subpar games, people have two new reasons to tune in: Peyton and Eli.
And Armando Salguero of Outkick.com:
I hung out with my buds Peyton and Eli Manning watching Monday Night Football from my couch, and we had some friends, including Ray Lewis and Russell Wilson, over to eat wings and talk ball.
“Peyton asked to get some wings, and I said, ‘If you want it all over his face and all over his outfit do it,’” Eli said. “He’s not going to be able to talk and eat at the same time. But he will try.”
Fine, so maybe the Mannings weren’t actually on my couch. But ESPN2’s alternate broadcast of the Raiders 30-27 overtime victory over the Baltimore Ravens, featuring the Manning brothers and guests, made me feel like they were right there with me.
This television idea, which must immediately win an Emmy for whoever dreamed it up, combined the folksy Manning personalities with calculus-level football analysis and game insight.
It was simply awesome.
It included the Mannings predicting coverages, predicting Baltimore’s defensive game plan next week against Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce, sharing personal flaws and pet peeves.
There was also a lot of brother getting after brother in a wonderful, good natured way.
Those hijinks began when producers put up a slide of a tweet saying “Peyton needs a perscription helmet for that dome.”
“What is this tweet, I gotta talk to this guy,” Peyton said. “Can’t spell prescription.”
Eli asked former Ravens and Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis, “If you have one of the real helmets Peyton wore with the Broncos or the Colts, would you want one of those helmets filled with quarters or $10,000 cash? Which one would bring you more?”
“Ok, now it starts,” Peyton responded to the big head jab. “Ray gets on and now it starts.”
And soon Peyton is reminding everyone of the game Eli had as a rookie against the Ravens in which he finished with a 0.0 quarterback rating.
“It’s lower than the GPA Belushi had in Animal House,” Peyton said.
Peyton recalled when he and Lewis would be at the Pro Bowl in the 2000s and each would try to recruit the other to their own teams.
“It was, ‘Ray, when you going to be a free agent? When you going to try to come to the Colts?’” Peyton said. “He’s saying, ‘Hey you got to come to the Ravens.’ The reason I didn’t want to come to the Ravens is because Ray and Ed Reed beat up their own offense in practice everyday, Eli.
“And by the time Sunday came around, the quarterback is like, ‘I have no confidence in any of our plays because I’ve thrown seven interceptions to Ed Reed in practice.’ That’s not the idea to get the quarterback confident.
“Who was that? Kyle Boller? You treated him very poorly in practice, Ray.”
Lewis had a reason for it.
“That’s how we made people tough,” he said. “We would not let you complete a first down every day in practice. So figure it out. When you get in the game, it’ll be easier.”
Now the trio on camera is paying attention to the game again and see Raider K.J. Wright tackle a Baltimore ball carrier for a loss on fourth-and-1. And the replay shows Wright line up wide and run a stunt inside around two defensive linemen.
But this: The Ravens had a man in motion, and the Mannings saw that Wright timed his move around his teammates by synching up with the motion man’s movement before the snap.
It’s something the Mannings picked up but the Ravens obviously didn’t think about when they drew up the play.
The Mannings spent the entire game rooting for neither the Ravens nor the Raiders. But they spent the whole time rooting for whichever offense was on the field.
And the commentary came with the kind of humility that made these two millionaire Super Bowl winners immensely relatable.
On Baltimore’s second touchdown of the night, quarterback Lamar Jackson had to scramble out of the pocket to avoid pressure. He eventually found Marquise Brown for a 10-yard score.
“I would have thrown it away three times,” Peyton said. “Lamar’s like, ‘Nope, I’m just working here. I’m toying with these guys.’ The best thing Lamar did was he kept his eyes downfield the whole time. He was never looking at the linemen.”
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The commentary also pulled no punches. Both brothers called out officials for penalizing the Raiders for an offensive pass interference when a Las Vegas receiver barely got near the Ravens defender.
“That is brutal,” Peyton said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Eli agreed.
And then Peyton shared this:
“I remember one time I just [ripped] into the referee. I knew the guy, good guy. But he called the worst holding call. I let him have it. I felt so bad, I asked the NFL for his address. I was going to write him an apology letter.
“They wouldn’t give me his address. They thought I was going to go and egg his house or something. Anyway, the guy thinks I’m a jerk to this day because I cussed him out for a holding call against the Dolphins in the second quarter.”
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Eli took on the notion the Ravens have to throw the ball better in 2021 to factor in the Super Bowl conversation.
“They’re the No. 1 rushing team,” he said. “They’re last in passing, right? Well, if you’re first in rushing, you’re not going to be first in passing, too. Simple as that.”
Throughout the broadcast, Eli showed how ridiculously intelligent he is. One can only imagine how frustrated he must have been those last few years of his career with all the failed head coaches the Giants hired.
At one point, Eli recalled that a coach once told him a safety coming down into the tackle box was always blitzing. Except, he noted, “that was not always true.”
The Mannings explained what a burger route is. It’s a route that goes in and out.
They explained what a Gilligan blocking call is. It’s when everybody’s on an island, blocking one-on-one.
They even told us what veteran quarterbacks do when they don’t like the play-call from coaches in their headset.
“You give them one of these,” Peyton said, motioning to his head as if he couldn’t hear. “I’m calling my own play. Rich Gannon actually taught me that. But everyone has to have your back — the backup quarterback, and the assistant equipment manager has to take a chewing by the coach.”
The duo also took us into an NFL team’s halftime locker room and what actually happens. Hint: Not a lot.
“They still have oranges out,” Peyton said.
“It’s amazing at halftime, you think you’re going to make all these halftime adjustments,” Eli said, “and I haven’t been at this new stadium but by the time you make the long walk to the locker room, you maybe go to the restroom real quick, the coach is coming down from the booth, he gets down there and says, ‘Hey guys, good job, we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to run this play and this play.’
“And then somebody yells, ‘Two minutes. Two minutes until we’re out.’ And you’re like, ‘That’s all we get?”
“Yeah,” Peyton said, “great halftime speech.”
Eli picked up: “So when the media comes after and asks, ‘Hey what happened at halftime? Y’all came out fired up.’ And you want to be like, ‘Yeah, it must have been the oranges and the two plays we talked about that we were going to run.’ That was the difference.”
“There were no adjustments,” Peyton admitted.
“No adjustments,” Eli echoed.
Both former quarterbacks were in disbelief the crowd in Las Vegas was often loud when the Raiders had the ball on offense.
“That’s irritating for a quarterback,” said Peyton, who then explained Derek Carr needed a chance to get in a rhythm and was so in tune with Jon Gruden’s offense after four years of experience with it, he could cut the coach off midway through his call from the sideline.
In the game’s final minutes, as the game went into overtime and each play begged urgency, Peyton grabbed a football and started holding it, twirling it nervously, even biting at it once.
And then Jackson fumbled on a blitz. Peyton noted it was only the second blitz of the game by Raiders defensive coordinator Gus Bradley.
“I know what the Ravens are going to run every single snap now,” Eli said of the Ravens’ defense now on the field after the turnover. “Zero, zero, and zero.”
The Ravens did exactly that. And Carr threw the game-winning touchdown to Zay Jones.
“I knew when the game started that Carr would throw the game-winning touchdown to Jones,” Peyton said.
“I thought you said after the first incomplete pass they were going 4-13 this year,” Eli offered.
“They’re all going to be like this, E,” Peyton said.
“This,” Eli said, “Was fun, bro.”
Yes it was.
Golf commentator and teacher Peter Kostis wondered this:
@peterjkostis
Dear ESPN. What happens when Peyton and Eli get higher ratings than the actual telecast?
But Mike Florio has seen the Week 1 ratings:
Social media loved the Peyton and Eli Manning show on Monday night. As in many other instances, the rest of the world didn’t share the same enthusiasm.
Via John Ourand of Sports Business Journal, the ESPN2 rating for the Ravens-Raiders game as enhanced (or otherwise) by the Manning brothers generated a 0.6 rating, with a share of 1. In contrast, the primary feed, televised by ABC and ESPN, rang up a 6.5 and 4.5 rating, respectively, and shares of 14 and 10.
It’s a surprising outcome, one that surely makes Steve Levy, Brian Griese, and Louis Riddick feel a little better after seeing the amount of praise heaped on the secondary broadcast that seemed certain to sabotage their overall number. Ultimately, it hardly took a dent out of the main audience.
The Manningcast may work better while watching the game alone than in a group. We had six people watching the game on the PFT patio; the natural conversation among those watching the game made the Manning discussion unnecessary and generally hard to follow. We turned it on four different times and almost immediately went back to the primary feed.
Meanwhile, some in the industry have grumbled about the willingness of Peyton Manning to undermine the primary crew in lieu of actually become a member of it. One person raised an interesting question: What would Manning say and do if he were the lead analyst on Monday Night Football and ESPN set up an alternate feed and hyped it relentlessly?
Maybe, once he saw the ratings, he wouldn’t care.
We wonder how many folks actually knew the Manningcast was available.
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