Peyton Manning reminded us why he would be so much fun in a broadcast booth by explaining why he would not be joining his brother, Eli, in the ESPN broadcast booth.
“It’d be so hard to get a word in,” Manning said during an interview at the Tennessee men’s basketball game on Saturday night on ESPN. “We’re always arguing over who’s gonna say what. I’m not sure the two of us would fit in that booth together. I look forward to doing some fun things with him in the fall especially that we haven’t had a chance to do in a long time. He’s at peace, so I’m happy about that.”
Manning’s honesty and sense of humor would make him a terrific analyst on television. Alas, he has repeatedly rejected the job offer.
Eli announced his retirement on Friday, and joined Peyton, who retired in 2016. Manning has spent some time in front of a camera since leaving the NFL. His work has included an ESPN show called, “Peyton’s Places,” which documents famous places and people in the league’s history. That screen time reinforces the idea that Peyton would be a terrific analyst on Monday Night Football. Throw Eli into the booth and it would be must-watch TV. But Peyton didn’t sound interested — at least not in his interview with ESPN this weekend.
In 2019, ESPN used play-by-play Joe Tessitore and analyst Booger McFarland. McFarland supplanted Jason Witten, who returned to the NFL to play tight end for the Dallas Cowboys in 2019. Neither color analyst was particularly good. So ESPN will spend another offseason trying to figure out their competition for Tony Romo, who has proven to be the best football color analyst on television for CBS.
