The NFL Divisional Round playoff games this weekend can be somewhat confusing for football fans who want to catch the games on TV. With two games on Saturday and two on Sunday, the four games will be carried by five different networks.
On Saturday, CBS had the Denver Broncos‘ thrilling overtime 33-30 defeat of the Buffalo Bills, ending yet another Bills season with the team still seeking the first Super Bowl championship in franchise history.
Later in the day, FOX carried the NFC Divisional game between the top-seeded Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers, who advanced by ousting the defending Super Bowl champs, the Philadelphia Eagles.
The other NFC game — Los Angeles Rams vs. Chicago Bears — will air on NBC as the late game at 6:30 p.m. ET.
But Sunday kicks off at 3 p.m. ET with the second AFC game, pitting the Houston Texans against the second-seeded New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. That game will be carried simultaneously by ABC and ESPN. In most weeks, ESPN games are accompanied by former NFL quarterback greats Peyton and Eli Manning and their always entertaining ManningCast.
Will the Manning brothers do their show for Texans vs. Patriots today?
Why is There No ManningCast?
The answer is no. The season has ended for Peyton and Eli Manning.
Their final ManningCast show was aired last weekend. The official title of the Mannings’ show is Monday Night Football with Peyton & Eli, so not surprisingly it accompanied the final Monday Night Football broadcast of the season, which was the Texans vs. Pittsburgh Steelers Wild Card Round game, won by Houston in a 30-6 rout.
Peyton Manning’s entertainment company Omaha Productions is the entity behind Monday Night Football with Peyton & Eli, and Omaha’s contract with ESPN called for just 12 shows this season, starting in Week 1 and ending with the Wild Card Monday night game.
So fans of the Mannings and their signature brand of breezy football banter and lineup of illustrious guests will simply have to wait until the start of the 2026 season to enjoy the next ManningCast broadcast.
The contract between ESPN and Omaha Productions runs through 2034, so the ManningCast, it appears, isn’t going anywhere for at least another nine years.
Ratings For the Mannings’ Show Have Plunged
When the first Monday Night Football with Peyton & Eli program aired on ESPN2 in 2021, the show was an instant hit, and by Season 2 the Manning brothers drew upwards of 1.1 million viewers per episode.
However, by the third season, at least two episodes fell under 1 million viewers, and this season, the fifth, not a single airing of the ManningCast pulled in a seven-figure viewership. In fact, according to a report by the sports media-monitoring site Awful Announcing, only two episodes even cracked the 900,000 mark.
“None of this should be too shocking. The uniqueness and absurdity that made the early ManningCast seasons so exciting have faded over time,” wrote Awful Announcing‘s Sean Keeley on Thursday. “There are also so many times Peyton and Eli can trot out the same schticks. Spontaneity has given way to slickly produced showmanship.”
Will Texans vs. Patriots Have a ManningCast Today?