Rest assured, NFL fans, your favorite broadcasting duo is back.
ESPN confirmed back in February the iconic duo of Peyton and Eli Manning would continue their Monday night football broadcasts through 2024. According to the media outlet, Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli averaged 1.6 million viewers over nine episodes last season, its high being 1.96 million during the Week 8 matchup between the Giants and Chiefs.
But at the time of the extension announcement, it was not known when the duo that brought the double bird and the chaotic storyline of whether or not Rob Gronkowski watched film would grace NFL fans' screens.
Week 1 is filled with potential given the offseason storylines, but Eli and Peyton will kick off the 2022 campaign with Broncos vs. Seahawks (or possibly more commonly referred to as Russell Wilson vs. his former team). Wilson also defeated the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, when Peyton was quarterback.
The Manning brothers went a more creative route in announcing their schedule for this season with a special guest, Lily Collins. For those who may have missed the episode, Peyton professed his love for Emily in Paris while on Saturday Night Live, saying in a skit that the series, “has everything: romance, adventure, sensuality, culture, a fresh take on feminism, finally, not to mention a culinary tapestry so rich, I could only describe it as ‘food porn.’”
The Emily in Paris star spoke about the alternate broadcast in the announcement clip, saying, “The only thing better than watching football, is watching other people watch football.”
Collins continued: “The Manning brothers get to reprise the roles they were literally born to play—themselves. Peyton, the type-A older brother—meticulous, bossy, easily exasperated… and Eli—the dopey baby bro, easily confused, always looking like a sleepy teenager whose mom just woke him up from an unplanned nap. Don't get me started on the fashion,” the star joked. “Every permutation of khaki pant and quarter-zip pullover a girl could dream of. And the colors—all manners of beiges and grays and beiges.”
She even made sure to highlight different cliffhangers from last season. “Will Peyton learn to eat with his mouth closed? Will Eli’s outlandish behavior finally get him booted from the SEC? Will they find a helmet big enough to fit Peyton’s giant head? And the biggest question of all—will someone, I mean anyone, successfully toss us to a commercial break? I mean they’ve combined and thrown 930 touchdowns and tossed to zero commercial breaks.”
