Former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning created a little controversy on “Monday Night Football.”
Eli Manning and his brother, NFL Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, have been doing commentary for ESPN on the Monday night games, which features the usual banter between the two brothers. During Monday’s 41-21 win by the Dallas Cowboys over the Philadelphia Eagles, Manning was talking about his own experience of playing against the Eagles, according to The Big Lead. He talked about the reception he would get from kids in the stands, and decided to show off what it looked like.
- “You’re getting the double bird right in your face from a 9-year-old kid. I would give the bird, I don’t know, can we do that? Can you ... I’m sure you can blur that out, right? Getting the double bird by a 9-year-old and they’re saying things about my mom and Peyton and I can’t tell you what they said about mom. You do not want to know.”
After a commercial break, Manning apologized, per Awful Announcing.
- “All right, all right, sorry. Earlier I did the double bird; I guess that’s frowned upon. So I apologize if I offended anybody. That’s what a 9-year-old did to me, so I thought I could do it back.”
Eli and Peyton Manning were added as secondary commentators for “Monday Night Football” this season, and it’s proven to have success. Per USA Today, the Manning brothers garnered 800,000 viewers in Week 1 and 1.9 million viewers in Week 2. For comparison, the normal “Monday Night Football” broadcast had 11.9 million viewers.