Somewhere, Archie Manning is muttering to himself, “Don't make me come down there.”
The ManningCast has been an undeniable success for ESPN this season, with Peyton and Eli providing a strong alternative viewing experience to the standard broadcast. It’s a shame that this will likely be the first and last year of the show, though, as the Manning brothers can't seem to stop running afoul of the FCC.
During Monday’s broadcast of the Rams-Cardinals wild-card game, Eli attempted to set up Peyton for a breakdown of the touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford to Odell Beckham Jr. There was one problem: Peyton’s audio wasn’t working, and he couldn’t hear anything, a problem which he communicated using some colorful language.
Earlier this season, it was Eli who couldn’t refrain from R-rated content when he gave a double-bird hand gesture to the camera when retelling a story about how a child gave him the birds during his playing days when the Giants traveled to Philadelphia. At least this time, Eli was prepared to transition away from the potentially awkward moment with a perfectly pitched, “Never mind.”
ESPN likely has the budget to cover any FCC fines that come their way, so we should expect to see more of the Manning brothers’s one-of-a-kind analysis in the foreseeable future. But there’s an easy-to-spot area for improvement, so perhaps Archie can help with cleaning up the language during the broadcast with a bar of soap and a stern talking to.
