For the second week of the ESPN/Omaha Productions ManningCast Monday Night Football For an alternate broadcast covering the Atlanta Falcons’ road game against the Philadelphia Eagles, Peyton and Eli Manning have chosen a notable Philadelphia-area player who had great success with the Falcons and is now a sportscaster for CBS. That’s Matt Ryan.
Ryan was born in Exton, Pennsylvania, about an hour west of Philadelphia. He attended William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia (the school that The Goldbergs known as the “William Penn Academy” and also has another former athlete turned broadcaster in Rubén Amaro Jr., and then had success in college football with Boston College. The Falcons selected him third overall in the 2008 NFL Draft and he played there until 2021 before ending his playing career with the Indianapolis Colts in 2022.
Ryan began his career as a game analyst for CBS last year (along with Andrew Catalon, Tiki Barber and reporter AJ Ross) and stayed there despite rumors he might try to make an NFL comeback, saying, “I love what I do.” This year, he moved to CBS’ revamped The NFL today pregame show, along with James Brown, Bill Cowher, JJ Watt and Nate Burleson. And now he’s one of the rare NFL commentators to guest on another network’s coverage of the league.
This is the fourth season of the ManningCast, which has received a lot of praise (including Sports Emmys for the show as Outstanding Live Series in 2022 and this year, and a Sports Emmy for Peyton Manning as Outstanding Studio Analyst in 2023). There are 11 games scheduled this season, but Monday’s game will be the last until Oct. 7. It is also slated to be a major part of ESPN/ABC’s NFL broadcasts for some time, including Super Bowl LXI on ABC in 2027.
Meanwhile, the Mannings were able to bring in a prominent regular guest this season: Bill Belichick (who will appear in every first quarter). They also changed their approach to guests to focus more on big plays when they happen rather than just the interviews.
This change (described by Peyton Manning in a Kissing with the boys Podcast) included a comment about possibly having fewer guests, where he talked about perhaps using only Belichick, a current or former player and a celebrity who is not a player. (For Monday’s game, actor Miles Teller, known for Whiplash, Top Shooter: Maverickand more, will also be guests.) In that interview, Manning said that the most important things to work on during the broadcast are “making sure that the guests are involved in the game and that we’re always talking about what’s going on in the game,” which should be easy with Ryan, who now has not only experience as a player but also his media experience.
The ManningCast airs Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
