Bill Belichick gets weekly spot on ESPN’s ‘ManningCast’

Bill Belichick isn’t coaching an NFL franchise this season, but he’ll still be on television screens often during the 2024 NFL season. Peyton Manning, who with his brother, Eli, hosts the “ManningCast” on ESPN — officially called “Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli” — said the coach will appear on every episode during the upcoming season. “ManningCast” airs as an alternative viewing format for the majority of, but not all, “Monday Night Football” games. Peyton Manning told “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN on Friday that Belichick will be on the show every week, likely early in the game, to share his expertise. “That’s the idea, that Bill is going to be a permanent guest on every ‘ManningCast’ show early in the game, probably the first quarter,” Manning explained, “to kind of take people behind the ropes as to what this defense has to do or what the quarterback’s challenges are.” The Manning brothers have a long history with Bill Belichick, who won six Super Bowl games with the New England Patriots. He and the team, which he started coaching in 2000, mutually split after a 4-13 season in 2023. Peyton and Tom Brady were the preeminent quarterbacks of their era, engaging in a head-to-head rivalry that saw Brady’s Patriots beat Peyton’s Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos 11 times in 17 attempts. Eli’s New York Giants beat the Patriots twice in the Super Bowl, to conclude the 2007 and 2011 seasons. Belichick has been coveted for television jobs, and he agreed to join Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions. “It was an easy pitch to Bill. I said, ‘Bill, we want you to come on. Look, we’d love to go behind the ropes on the defensive side as to kind of what the Eagles are going to have to do to stop Patrick Mahomes, right?’And if you ever run out of things to say, just make fun of Eli, right? That’s always sort of a time-filler,'” Peyton said. “And Bill doesn’t like Eli. We all know that — two Super Bowls — so it’s just a match made in heaven.” –Field Level Media