One day in the not too distant future, eventual Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning could be sitting in the Monday Night Football booth calling primetime games on a weekly basis.
That will not be the case here in 2019, however.
Manning acknowledged speaking with those in charge at Monday Night Football, but decided to pass, telling Ryan O’Halloran of the Denver Post in May that now is just not the right time.
“I talked to the Monday night football folks,” Manning said. “I enjoyed talking to the them. I had great conversation. It wasn’t the right time this year. Maybe it will never be.”
As it turns out, the time isn’t right for Manning because he doesn’t want to find himself in a position where he would have to analyze his brother, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning.
“If he ever decides [Monday Night Football] is something he wants to do, it’s going to be after Eli has finished his career and he gets a little bit further from his era of playing and maybe some of his teammates have moved on, too,” a source told Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports. “It would have been a tough position for him this season, with the Giants [and Broncos] being on the schedule. There is a lot of loyalty there for him and I don’t think he’d ever want to be in a position where he’d be conflicted about his analysis. It just wouldn’t have been a comfortable situation this year.”
Peyton alluded to that being the case at the Manning Passing Academy in Louisiana last week, but added that there’s more to it than just covering Eli.
“It’s great to have someone that you’re so close to, that you feel invested in, to watch [Eli] play and compete,” Manning said. “I know when Eli stops playing, it will be different, because when you have a brother, you feel a part of it. I pull hard for Eli. I keep up with the coaches, guys like Adam Gase, who I played for, [and] players, like Emmanuel Sanders and Von Miller, that I played with. Anybody that you have a connection to, you feel that connection when you watch him play in person or on TV. So I’ve been real proud of Eli and I’m looking forward to watching him play this year.”
This is not the first time speculation regarding Peyton refusing to analyze Eli has surfaced, nor is it anything that should come as a surprise. The Manning brothers are incredibly close and outside of poking fun at each other, aren’t in the game of criticizing the other.
Someday, Eli will call it a career — hopefully with a third Lombardi Trophy — and Peyton will reconsider jumping into the booth and blessing the football world with with amusing sarcasm and high football IQ.
