The Press Box - Peyton and Eli Manning Do 'Monday Night Football'

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

Bryan is joined by The Ringer's Kevin Clark to break down Peyton and Eli Manning's 'Monday Night Football' broadcast. They discuss the chemistry between the brothers, talk through which elements were a hit or miss, and predict how this type of broadcast could impact broadcast television moving forward.  Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Kevin Clark Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dave Chang is an avid student and fan of sports, music, art, film, and of course, food. With a rotating cast of guests, they have conversations that cover everything from the creative process to his guest's guiltiest pleasures. Followed the Dave Chang show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, media consumers. This is the press box. Brian Curtis and Kevin Clark here along with producer Erica Servantes. Kevin, we had to jump on a pod because we're both watching Peyton and Eli Manning. alternate broadcast of Monday night football on ESPN 2. It's good.

It's largely really good. And it feels like something is happening tonight that could at least change the way we think about watching games on TV. You're opening thoughts on Peyton and Eli. Well, I'll say this. We've done two emergency press boxes, you and I over the past, I don't know, three years. One of them was the NFL signing game changing. game-changing TV contracts and what that meant to the salary cap and the way the league is structured and all this stuff.

And the other is that a broadcast made us laugh. Like a football broadcast made us chuckle. And we were texting about it. And that's where we're at. My opening thought is that the mannings have cornered the market on something because there are people who are tweeting at me tonight and they were like, oh, everybody should do this. Well, everybody doesn't have Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. And that's the important part here.

And I kind of think that we're going to get a wave of bad imitations now. Like every executive might tomorrow be like, oh, we got to get two players and just chop it up. And you got to have the right personalities. Eli was on Slow Newsday last week, which is the video series I host. And he was so funny. And it was the kind of thing. Like he was laughing about Eli face. He was doing it for me.

His son has it. He's talking about Zoolander. He was going through all this stuff. He was deadpanning. And it was the kind of thing. You always hear this. sure this about Andy Reid too is like there's a secret funny side to them and I never believe it because if it doesn't show up it just doesn't it doesn't exist in my book and it all kind of showed up at once it was just a huge avalanche of Eli Deadpan and now we've seen it uh Travis Kelsey is now on the broadcast for some reason that was that was unannounced um but I I just think that this is this is gold um I think there's there's some flaws we don't have pick uh pick knits we will here in a little bit uh but I I I love this.

As a football consumer, as somebody who loves the game, there's concerns I have that, like, my parents might be confused by this. Like, I'm not the core audience. Kyle Bowler anecdote to me is gold.

I love the Kyle Bowler anecdotes. My parents are the reason that, like, 60 million people watching a UFC championship game, and I don't know how it plays to, as the old saying goes, Peoria right now. Okay, so I want to ask you about that

because I think I had this thought coming in that they were going to go really broad. You know, Peyton and Eli Manning are the kind of people that our parents know kind of at, you know, the tiny number of athletes. My mom could be like, I know who that is. And I kind of thought it was going to be very celebrity and very, you know, we're talking some ball, but we're also talking to, you know, we're talking to, you know, some guy from a movie or Will Ferrell, whoever it is. And they were going to be going for just kind of, we're going to go viral. We're going to do this. We'll be on, we'll get stuff on GMA, right? Some, some clips they can show.

This was a lot of football. This is, it was pretty heavy X's and O's right out of the gate with Peyton standing in front of the whiteboard, was it not? Almost immediately. And to the point, it was strange. There was so much football that there was not a focus on the football, if that makes sense. There was not a focus on the football that was actually happening. And they saw that pretty quickly.

So if people weren't watching immediately, Peyton put the Grudenvisor on within 30 seconds, he goes to the whiteboard, he's doing five or six things that were obviously pre-playing, but the problem is like, you know, as the old saying goes, life is what happens when you're making plans. And there was a football game happening. And they had had some stuff ready to go. And they were missing the beginning of snaps. They were talking about things that weren't happening on the screen. I think they abandoned that pretty quickly and figured out maybe they ran out a bit.

But they once they settled in and they were just talking about football and even with Charles Barkley, they were doing football stuff. They had a couple of hoops questions, stuff like that. But I would say that, you know, once, once Peyton got into, oh, Ray, the bringing pressure mode or getting angry, being offended at Derek Carr's bad play. That's when I thought it really took off. If they keep the football, the centerpiece of the show, first of all, that's what they know best. It's not like this is some stretch for them, but they're also going to be funny and engaging. I think the fact that Travis Kelsey's on right now is a lot better than if you remember the Monday Night of Football years where they had like Christian Slater in the booth.

Yeah, that was tough. We didn't need that. We need more Travis Kelsey. Absolutely. You realized immediately why Peyton Manning has been the number one prospect for every single network for years now. He's really good at talking about football. Eli is also really good at talking about football. I think the big surprise for me from Jump tonight was that Peyton was really good at kind of doing play by play in addition to being the analyst. It was very big brother, little brother, where he's like, no, no, I got this. I'm right.

I'm going to let you come. in, right? I'm going to let you come in. I had a little bit of that podcast vibe where you're the listener and you're like, why isn't that one podcast host letting the other host talk at all? He was fired up. He was going, but he was really good at talking about what was happening on the screen, like setting it up, like this happened and then let me tell you why this happened.

He was doing both jobs. Next episode, Peyton is going to do just a 15 minute Mark Marin style monologue to open up the game for the first quarter. Peyton is Mike Daisy. Let's bring any life. That is that's what's happened today. It felt a little. And then I felt like somebody who tweeted at me,

they're like, Peyton cannot be discharged up for three hours, right? Like, he's just going to have to stop. He's going to run out of material. They're both. They're both great. I'm glad.

I think that the host of this show, obviously there were a lot of amazing candidates. I'm actually glad that's just a free flowing conversation between those two. And then bringing the third, I would, I would, as much as I'm enjoying this, I'd watch the guests.

We don't need to overbook the guests here. The best part of it is Eli and Peyton watching the game. I don't need necessarily like Miles Garrett next game. Like I'm good on some of this stuff. If it's pertinent or I mean, if it's somebody who has a keen insight on one of these teams, that's important. But let's not just bring in random people for the sake of doing it.

We've talked about this a million times. Like one of the cheat codes in podcasting and there's a huge difference between national television and podcasting, but one of the things, that we've learned is looking at the metrics is a lot of times like the relationships and the two people who are the three people or the four people who are the core tenants of the podcast they that's what the audience wants right that's what the audience wants they don't want you know some random person coming in and sitting in for 30 minutes then and leaving from their lives like

the the the poochie stuff from the simpsons right they don't want that uh they want the the core over and over again and so i think that's one thing to watch but other than that i mean that again that's that's picking that's so the relationship stuff was off the charts tonight is off the charts this is still happening by the way Kevin in case there's like a disaster about chemistry there's something horrible that happens in the third quarter just ignore everything Kevin and I say over the next couple of minutes but the chemistry was was great and it was also just felt very warm and yeah and you and I again have been around media sports media for a long time and the biggest note any producer gives to anyone

is just talk about the game like you're explaining it to your friends. Just talk about it like you're talking at a bar. And in fact, Peyton said that in the run run up to this broadcast. And I went, oh no. Oh, no. I've heard this. I know this. They kind of have been doing that tonight. They have been talking in a really nice, casual, let's watch football and talk about it in a really smart way. And the fact that their brothers makes up to the fact that they're not going to be in the same room, but there's a natural ebb and flow chemistry, even if Eli isn't talking as much. Um, I'm a, total agreement with you. I mean, Peyton is hitting all the right notes. He knows exactly how to do it.

I mean, like, you got to remember, Peyton, even outside of the games, he's been talking about football for a long time. I mean, he is a beacon of corporate America. You know, it's almost like Phil Mickelson, right? We're like, he's got a glad hand a lot. And so he's got to explain football to a lot of people who don't necessarily know football. He's also extremely good with the media. I know most people think that the media doesn't care. We have a random Reggie Jackson shot here. Reggie, Mr. October in the house. He's, we moved on. Now it's George Lopez. But, but, But it's what? What's happening?

Are we doing Hollywood squares here? They're doing a celebrity montage. Oh, wow. Yeah, there was, oh, there's Reggie. There's Mr. October. It's like a boxing match. It's like a boxing match. The bits were kind of incredible, we should say tonight, because they were both like, okay,

Peyton and Eli are each going to stand up and pretend they are the other quarterback in real time. And none of us at home will have any idea what's going on. right now. So we got to put on a helmet. What's funny to me, Brian, as I was thinking about this as we were talking about it, but I remember talking to a Pop-Buff play guy four or five years ago, a guy I know kind of well.

And he was like, you would not believe the amount of studying that goes on the week of a game, right? And I understand why. And he said it's basically like cramming for the SAT, maybe worse, where you're just trying to learn, hometowns and little anecdotes about 53rd guy on the roster just in case.

And I guess the question is, I hate to be like, you know, Chip Kelly in one of those job interviews, one of his famous job interviews, but like, why? Like, why? What is, what is the driving force of network television that led us to the point that it's like, I have to know exactly when this guy started playing football? And I wonder if that's the biggest thing that's going to change is instead of that kind of preparation, just saying, you know what, these guys know football really well.

It might be, I'm never going to say it's the end of the play by play guy. You know this. Al Michaels is a king. Joe Buck is a king. They make the games go. And if you want to see the best value, the best case for a

for a play guy, watch a game with a bad play by play guy. And you're going to figure it out real quickly. It's like when a star player just goes out of the game and they just forgot to play football, a defense. whatever. So that's never going to go away, but the tone of it and the preparation, how how

networks approach this stuff. That in the short term is what might change. Yeah. And the funny thing about that is Peyton seemed like he was prepared within an inch of his life today, which is not a surprise if it, you know, for everything we know about Peyton Manning as a football player. But he actually came with like 9,000 anecdotes tonight. And you know, you and I when we talk to talk to the coordinators. Yeah. When we talk to color guys. you know, constantly, they're always like, look, you prepare 100 things and you use five of them because the games. Peyton seemed like he was determined to get in 99 of them in the first quarter tonight. He's like, I got a story. I got an anecdote about the Manning Passing Academy. I got to get in right now.

I got a Kyle Baller anecdote, which I saw you tweeting out. I'm like, there's just, he felt like he had to smash everything in. And yet, which I would also, if I was given notes, Peyton, we can just take that down like two thirds for the next game. You don't have to come in. with all that. But even with all that, he did feel like he was talking naturally. And you're right. It felt like he was talking in a less stilted way than the broadcaster says, oh, we got to get to this element in the second half because I've come up with this replay package and we're going to throw it to me. You got it. I don't know if you notice with Peyton Hiller. They showed Lamar Jackson's high school highlights and they both just no sold it. They're like, can we just get the game

back on here? What is happening? No interest in that package. It's kind of, it's what you been talking about some of these halftime shows, Brian, where it's like, everything is so pre-packaged that there's no time for anybody to talk. And they're just, they're just moving on from this. There's none of this, none of, even though the bits are pre-planned, there's not the, okay, Peyton has to hit his mark right now and talk 15 seconds and say, this stadium is a long time in the making, Eli, like, you don't need to do that. No one cares. No. And what was interesting to me is like, so Peyton and Eli, I don't know if you heard this, Peyton and Eli, right after half-time, We're basically just like, yeah, there's no such thing as halftime adjustments.

That was funny. But that's also, they're the first people to ever say this. Yes, it was a great. I've been watching football for 30 years. Well, see, I heard that. Everybody's like, Kevin, write that column at the journal. Like, I, I just thought I everybody knew that. But it was because it was so funny.

No, you know what I actually did write? There are no speeches. Oh, good. No speeches. And pre-gamer, pre-gamer halftime. I did, I did write no speeches in the locker room. Didn't want to, you didn't want to do the no locker room genre too heavily. But yeah, I mean, it's funny because Rusillo was begging Chris Long for answers on what adjustments meant.

And Chris thought it meant like he thought because the defensive line never made adjustments. He thought it meant like the back end, like the defensive backs were making the adjustments. But it turns out nobody was making adjustments. Just nobody. It was like it's like a band where every country thinks that like the next country over is the country that likes the band. Like no one is actually embracing the adjustments here. It's not actually happening. Uh-huh. It's very, but that was, that was a really good bit.

And you're right. If, if, if any sports TV show was made as an artistic reaction to NBA countdown on ESPN, it was the Manning cast of Monday Night Football. We're just, we don't have nine seconds to talk. We have three hours. We're just going tonight. There's plenty of time. Right down a couple of other things.

First of all, you mentioned, you mentioned the guests. The technical direction was pretty great for a quarter to half. then we got to like ray lewis was in the middle of an anecdote we just went to commercial i actually like that it was it was charmingly that is that is as as close to slow newsday is ever going to get to network television it's just anecdote starts and then we just never hear the end of it there was a fire alarm going off apparently when ray louis was talking i thought that was pretty funny shoemaker and i had a convo on this pod a couple of weeks ago about how in media right now there's two different worlds there's the television and then there's the world of podcasting and they're all very, very separate.

And this did feel, we kept saying, when is TV going to sound more like a podcast or maybe if you want to say podcast more like TV? Tonight felt like they were creeping a little bit closer to each other. Like that would have been a good, this would have been a good long football convo podcast that just happened to be a game cast. I agree. I think there's a fine line because I do think that the problem. with podcasting is that

TV does demand some level of credibility that I think you can actually get to in podcasting a different with a different route. Like if you just, I mean, like, look at the, I know this sounds crazy, but like, you know, most of the murder mystery podcast are just people reading Wikipedia that people like, you know, it's not like the forensic

scientists are actually turned on the microphones here. And with football, I really do think that there's there's some credibility i mean you and i know people who have tried to get on as you know as as as anything as you and i know both know people reporters who have tried to climb the ladder on tv and they get to a certain point and some executive takes them aside and says you didn't play you didn't coach yep you didn't you know you didn't watch tape uh in a front office and and you're where you're going to be for the next 20 years and that is not the case in podcast And I wonder how much that's going to change, if at all.

I mean, like, again, I go back to the, my mom, her parents, whatever, or excuse me, my parents, their friends, all that stuff, they turn on the TV and they're like, oh, cool, let's do a Peyton Manning has to say. That's the default. That's why they go with huge stars. I was talking someone the other day about this, but the MNF booth in general is like, the reason they go with ex players and the safe picks is because they just, they don't want to take a chance. And if they're going to take a chance, it's going to be on a huge star.

And so I think that there's still a gate that is locked to most people when it comes to big time television. And that will remain the case for probably longer than we think. Oh, I think that's absolutely true. When I think if anything comes out of tonight, and here's my half-ass think piece for the night, when we think about these alternate telecast, they're usually very fun for people that love football like you and I, the coaches film room during the national championship game on ESPN, some of the gambling stuff. I'm sure some people get a kick out of that. I don't watch much of that. But all the little things can be very, very fun. Tonight was the first one where I went, oh, we've had 70 years of a play-by-play announcer and a famous

color analyst calling a game in a very specific way. This was the first time I watched something. and thought with some with some changes you know with some people getting used to it maybe this could be the main broadcast maybe we could do something different i agree and break up that mold that we've had for so long i agree with one huge caveat i think this could be the main broadcast i don't think anything else like this with payton and eliz with peyton and eliz yes so this thing could be the Super Bowl main A broadcast. This is a Black Swan event. Yes.

I mean, like, if you wanted to, if you wanted to have this as a Super Bowl, you could stick Chris Fowler in with them or Steve Levy or whomever and say, okay, we're going to do the Peyton and Eli thing, but we'll just have a little bit of a little bit of scene here, you know, and just set up who the, who the quarterback is where we went to college, all that, all that stuff, all that good stuff for the 100 and 102 million people who are watching. But I agree with you. This is driving the action forward. I think that there's, you know, the coaches film stuff, I would also say. The functional problem with that is that it's during the national championship. And I really want to pay attention to the national championship. I don't need Gus Malzon and Mike Gundy breaking down some third down that Trevor Lawrence is doing. Because I just want to know who's going to win the game.

I know that sounds very basic. But like I can get second level stuff the next. day, two days later, whatever. With this, I got to tell you, my life is not going to change depending on the Ravens or the Raiders outcome here today.

And so it's a little more casual. And so I'd say maybe the bigger the game, the less this works. You know, maybe we'll let we have less, we give less slack if there's just some random anecdote that goes for two minutes

when it's this type of game. So that's one thing to watch. But again, like I'd rather, I'd rather TV take those chances and be entertaining and fail a little bit and figure out what works rather than doing what they've done and relegating this stuff to to over the top or whatever. Yeah. Experimentation is always a good thing.

And I'm with you. Like I'm, I am really very much a play-by-play announcer person because at some point when I'm watching the alternate ones, I'm always like, what's happening? I don't understand. I can't hear the crowd,

which is a really cool element of watching football on television, especially college football on television. I just need somebody kind of setting it up for me. Eli has an iPad. Reminding me of the state. This is actually a step in the wrong direction. Oh, yeah. He was,

he was diagramming a minute ago. Was he diagramming again or is he just? Yeah, he's back. Just sending up the kids on Disney Plus. What's going on here? He, I like,

Travis Kelsey's been on a long time, by the way. Yeah, he's a three man booth now. He's also sitting, sitting in front of some very interesting plants and a very, very shaggy throw over that couch or whatever that is. I like the, I love announcers because they give you context. You know, when the one time the networks tried

to announce on this game, nobody had any idea what was going on because, you know, I'm a much more basic football fan than you. And it's just very helpful to every minute and a half, somebody says, here is what is happening in the game. Here are the sticks. Yeah. But the one thing I'd say about tonight is, I thought they did as good a job as I've ever seen on a non-traditional broadcast of actually setting that up. There were times they got away from it a little bit with the guests and all that kind of stuff, but I knew what was happening in the game. I knew how the quarterbacks were playing.

They did a lot of Manningy jokes. It was very, very good at that. Travis Kelsey for the Summerall roll. Ooh. Ooh. The tight-lipped first and 10. He's not a lot of room there for him. and was there.

Kind of the counterpuncher to Peyton and Eli. You know, you bring up the... It's like 60 years. Just Travis Kelsey the next 60 years in the booth. You bring up the guess, but this is what happens. Bill, our boss, talks about this all the time.

The three-man booth is always problematic, or almost always problematic. Yeah. So we went from two and then we went to three, and it's not as good. I want to ask you this as a football guy and a quarterback whisperer. Who are the other people?

If we agree that... Yeah. Peyton and Eli are kind of on their own tier, their own place here. Who are the other quarterbacks or other players you could see succeeding in this kind of environment, even guys who are playing now? Okay. So that's a great question. So I think there's a level of confidence that you need.

Peyton Manning has it to talk out of turn. And that was always the thing that that was the tantalizing possibility of Jake Cutler, although I think Cutler is kind of cycled out of this whole media world, that he go out there and just start guns ablazing. I don't even know, you know, Tony Romo was great at it, but I don't even know if Tony Romo goes out of his way to rip people. I mean, the way that Manning is reacting naturally to Derek Carr and some of his mistakes is, is really fun to watch.

I don't think he means to be mean, but it's just important. And it kind of like what Troy Aikman's done the last couple of years where it's just, he just hates guys. He just goes to hate guys. And he can't. He just can't. He can't handle it. So here's my short list.

I'm one of executives get their, their, pencils out. Yeah. We're whiteboarded. I already gave them, I already gave executives Robert Griffin the third. That's been noted. Phillip Rivers would be,

would be a big one. I'm going. So we're going to, we're going to have to wait on Baker. Unfortunately, it's going to be a while for Baker. Aaron Rogers, if he wants to do it,

I doubt he's going to want to do it. He's the first name that came to mind for me. He could succeed in this environment. The only way it's, going to work is if you let it be Aaron Rodge. It's going to be like Aaron Rogers' grievance hour, which is going to be amazing. Wait, is he talking about the Packers or is he talking about, I just talking about everything. I mean, no, no, what I mean by that is like some of Aaron Rogers' best moments are, and I love

the guy. Some of his best press conference moments are just like, someone will be like, oh, you know, Aaron, you threw that pass off the back foot there in the third quarter and he'll go, you know, that's funny because when I was coming out of high school the big book on me was that I couldn't throw off my back foot and it'll just go into some weird direction that just grinding an axe which could be amazing television at all times

but I don't know I don't necessarily know if you would want to do that Joe Burrow is going to be an amazing TV guy one that's a good one just see just see the ball hit the ball Brady's never going to want to do it and he wouldn't be good anyway I'm looking here I mean, Drew Breeze is clearly being set up for big things, but I don't know that I feel he's... The guys who are aging out, there's no one really. Ralthusberger, Matt Ryan, but you also have to remember Bruce Ariens was the prospect of all prospects.

Yeah. Remember that? It was like, oh, B.A. is going to get in the booth and he's just going to talk all this shit. And then nothing happened. No. And then he went back to football and was way more candid. The Bruce Ariens era of broadcast. is yeah I've already forgotten about it I just think you didn't I just think you didn't know what to say but the guys who are who are aging out now Rothesburger Matt Ryan even like a little bit younger Matthew Stafford and those guys they're not they're not really gonna light it up I'd say the list is Aaron Rogers would be pie in the sky that's going to be like like what Peyton has been for the past five years um Philip Rivers if you can get him out of Fairhope Alabama the Fair Hope Alabama high school system which he seems to enjoy right now.

And then I think you have to wait on some of these younger guys. I really do think the RG3, even though apparently he's begging the football team to sign him today. What is you're concerned when you sign like a 30-year-old is that he's going to try to play again. Yeah, usually that's the thing with coaches, right, as they go back to the league. But here you have the quarterback, maybe like a Jay Cutler going back to the league. That's a good list. I mean, the Manning one surprises me, though, because the networks have been trying to hire him for years. and part of the reason he didn't want to do it is he said,

I don't want to talk about Tom Brady, Eli Manning, brother, or Drew Breeze on television. I always thought Breeze was kind of the weird one of those three. I guess it's in New Orleans and a Saints thing. But it felt like he is kind of the anti-Barkley, right? I'm not doing it. But tonight it didn't seem to matter.

He seemed to be happy to be honest about these guys. I have a couple more for you. No, one, AJ McCarrant. AJ McCarron's going straight into a college booth as soon as he going straight with a headset. I got the list here. This is going to all the executives tonight.

I'm setting them up. Yeah. Colt McCoy is going straight to the Longhorn Network if it exists. I'm looking at the backup quarterbacks now. Chase Daniel. Chase Daniel, Chase Daniel, Chase Daniel, Chase Daniel, Chase Daniel. Big one. Okay.

Daniel cast. We've gotten all the, we've gotten all the booths now, if we're down to Chase Daniel. No, I'm just, Chase Daniel's actually going to be better than the other guys. Yeah, I think that that's a solid list. I unfortunately don't, I just don't think Russell Wilson is one of the smartest

and most insightful guys on a football side. He's never going to say anything. That just, he just doesn't want to rock the boat in that regard. Trying to think who else. I mean, like, I just, you know, I think you need a certain level of insight. This is why I identified RG3 when he was with the Ravens.

you need a certain level of insight, but then a willingness to just poke the bear. And that's what I really liked about RG3. And that's also something you just can't, you can't project. It's like the quarterback position, you know, projected from college to pro.

You don't know actually what traits are going to make the leap. That's right. Yeah. And these guys, as we know, they guess because they talk to the quarterbacks and the coaches in those pregame meetings of the broadcasters do.

And that's where they identify these guys and start making those lists that you're helping us make right now. The other thought I had, and I tweeted this, is there's an interesting media B story here, which is that ESPN tried to hire Peyton Man. And then they tried to hire him again. And they probably tried to hire him nine other times that we don't know about. He was not interested in that because working for ESPN as a proper broadcaster requires a lot of travel.

You're taking a lot of direction from producers, all that kind of stuff that is just, if you're Peyton Manning, any big star in any league, you're less excited about doing all that. You have nothing to prove in the world. But he got interested when ESPN said, well, what if we make a TV show that you, Peyton Manning, are the co-producer of? So ESPN is less your employer. Then ESPN is the host for your producing ambitions as it was for Kobe Bryant, as it was for Kevin Durant, as it kind of was for MJ because he had a taste of the last dance. that's interesting to me too because that's that's different from the way that sports TV has almost always worked and often there was a tier of guys that just had no interest in it because they made so much money they've been so successful and they're just like I don't need this but if you're telling them

it's not us making you go to Orchard Park and do a game you're doing it from home and hey you're producing the game right this is this is part of your shingle you are you were turning you into a media type a media figure that is more interesting to these guys I think than than working for them in the normal way. I agree. But from a football standpoint,

how many guys can command that? I think it's two. I think it's Peyton Manning and it's Tom Brady. Yeah. For this particular thing, for this particular thing is like getting to call a game. I think in the NBA,

it's the same. It's three upper echelon guys who would be able to do this and not be able to travel and do it from their home. Um, you know, I, I just, I think that there are a couple of lessons here that networks need to fight the temptation of. And one of them is kind of doing what you're talking about here and just like all of a sudden we're giving, you know, we're giving in three years when he retires, we're giving Pete Carroll has Pete Carroll's media company, his, uh, his own show. You know, like that That, that to me, this is a Peyton exclusive situation. And the other networks missed out on him.

And so warning the wrong lessons is worse than learning no lessons in the spot. Yes. That would be, it's going to be pretty rare. It's going to be pretty rare. A couple other notes from tonight. We knew there were going to be anecdotes about the Manning's own playing careers. We had lots of jokes about their lack of mobility, which I guess you'd expect in a Lamar Jackson game. also i did enjoy peyton bringing up how much the raven's defense haunted him that felt that

germane to this discussion and the highlights they dialed up were really funny i'm going to butcher the line but did eli have the line of the night where he said the helmet patent played with with the broncos would you rather have it filled with quarters or ten thousand dollars cash did you hear that i did i did everybody see i that that was the line of the night but I'm not really sure it landed with the group. Yes, it was really funny. It was really funny. He's working.

He's, uh, he lays in intellectual comedian. He showed that on Slow Newsday. He works at all kinds of levels. I couldn't believe it. He really, he was an all-time Slow Newsday guest. Until Jeff Fisher comes on tomorrow. Yeah.

Oh, that's, oh, there you go. A little preview for all you Slow Newsday fans. The other thing that made me funny was the way they sort of cheer. By the way, Jason Whitten was on slow news day, not great. Yeah. Not great.

Probably the worst one ever. Sorry, Jason. So it does, slow news day does, you know, there is some traits to carry over. That's all I'll say. I did like the way they were cheering on the quarterbacks

to make good plays. I like that, yeah. And this is always a thing when guys are fresh off the field or fairly fresh off the field like these two guys are, but they just seem to have a knowledge of who's playing right now. like Peyton continually referencing Tom Brady being mad about the New Jersey numbers. And it felt like he was doing that in a kind of organic way of like, yeah, I know Tom Brady.

We make jokes about each other. So I'm at the Hall of Fame the other day, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. I did, I did like that. Humble. We have a Lamar fumble. We have a Lamar fumble. Oh, Peyton can't handle it right now.

Peyton's just visibly upset. I have a couple of notes of Peyton Manning before we go. You want to hear my. No, I please do. And I have one question for you. Okay, let's do the question first. Then we'll close with the notes. Give me the best of the sport where this transfers most easily.

Baseball? Baseball. I saw some people talking about golf possibly because they're just how boring it all is. Yeah, I think the slower the sport, the more sort of, yeah, the more like time you have between golf shot. And again, the more slack you're going to give some story that goes, nowhere. Yeah. It's just kind of funny.

What do you if he had golf and the people were offsite like the manning's are and they didn't have to talk in the hushed voice went over the crowd and they just did in a different way. Yeah. You know who that would be in golf? It would be Tiger freaking Woods or film. Oh my gosh. Now there's another.

There's another guy who's going to get his own, if he wanted his own alternate telecast within his production. Tiger cast. I think Tiger would be able to lock that down. Got a couple of notes for Peyton Manning. Number one, we don't need to read tweets on the air. we just i mean i think as television i know that's like the number one idea everybody has okay we're all if you if you have a message i'd rather we they did like a text from archie that said stop scratching

your head your mom says that which i did notice pey was scratching his head a lot and is actually still scratching his head as i watch right now that was we don't need to have texts we're just no text we're all good we're all good with also how'd they get that text i'm sorry tweets that texts are okay we don't need any tweets no no no no no no No, no, no tweets. I understand that, but how did they get the text from? I don't know. It was probably a bit.

I don't know. Of course. I know. I don't have to say it just was, it was weird. The other thing was Shoemaker and I were talking about pop culture reference that had that had timed out today on the podcast. And we specifically mentioned animal house. Like just never make an animal house reference ever. What does Peyton do?

He references John Belushi's great point average in animal house. Peyton, were you writing a sports column in 1982? What else is on that list? That was the big one that came to mind. Yeah. Any Springsteen, of course, but that doesn't need to be said. Any Springsteen, stripes, I would put in that boat. Yeah, but Peyton, were you writing like a Los Angeles Times sports column in the 80s?

Animal House. I actually, I'm ashamed to say this. I have a nugget on that. I have a nugget on that whole thing. Peyton Manning and actually the late Greg Knapp were huge 80s movie buffs. And they used to make their backups, his backups, even like Brock Osweiler, watch any 80s comedy they had not seen. So like not just stripes, but like Mr. Mom was on the list. Like Peyton needs to assign 80s movies to his back of quarterbacks so that they could all sit around and joke about it.

I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed I had that anecdote. You did. That's incredible. But I want us to move to second tier 80s movies like Mr. Mom and just leave Animal House behind. If you make a Mr. Mom reference, that'd be really weird, but at least there's still time. Oh, my God. All right. Kevin Clark, a moment in broadcasting tonight. I'm, I think I'm just shocked at, again, I'm very pro experimentation. I love seeing new things. most new things turn out to be either bad or sort of good around the margins. And tonight, and again, if my texts and in the tweets I saw are any indication, people are like,

I kind of like this. I'm not mad at something I'm saying on sports television. And as you say, I laughed. I actually laughed at something on sports TV. What a moment. I said this on the pod this morning, Monday morning. But Drew Brees making fun with his lack of arm strength on Sunday night and the NBC. booth and a genuine chuckle because it was so out of nowhere, that felt like the first real

laugh on a, on a, any network desk in maybe three years. Like it was a genuine belly laugh. It was a big laugh. It wasn't the first laugh, but it was the biggest laugh because I just felt like nobody saw Drew Brie's making fun of himself coming. Yeah. It's mostly the kind of laughs that you get in the pregame shows, which are not even jokes, or the kind of laugh in the booth where you're, where you're now, play by play announcer, he goes,

second and 10 just moves it along just make sure I want the audience to know that I'm not completing no selling this second and 10 or it'll be like it'll be like it'll be like just a completely inside

joke that doesn't seem inside or reach of the booth guys they'll be like so and so fall over him but pardoned us like you with the Mexican restaurant last night and they'll just laugh and it's like what just happened man yeah too many margaritas there bud

yeah it's like no no I want to know even less about your lives. Don't, please don't bring that up ever again. All right. I'm Brian Curtis. He is Kevin Clark. Listen to Slow Newsday. Listen to the Ringer NFL show.

Read his writings in the Ringer. Production Magic by Erica Servantes. We're back soon with more Luke Warm takes about the media. See you then.