This week’s Cincinnati Bengals-Dallas Cowboys Monday Night Football clash will feature the last ManningCast of the regular season. (There will be one more for ABC’s wild card game.) And Monday’s Omaha Productions/ESPN alternate broadcast has some special guests lined up, with NBC Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth set to join during the third quarter and music star John Legend to join during the fourth quarter.
Collinsworth is an interesting addition, and extends the ManningCast’s run of having football broadcasters from other networks on. This year alone, that list has included NBC’s Maria Taylor, NFL Network/RedZone‘s Scott Hanson (in an unusual game update role during a doubleheader), and CBS’ Matt Ryan. It’s uncommon to see broadcasters appearing on other networks in general (although that’s changing slightly these days at ESPN, with programs like The Pat McAfee Show and The Sports Reporters often featuring outside talent), and it’s particularly unusual for game coverage, but we’re seeing it a lot with the ManningCast, and it seems to be working well.
Legend is a notable guest as well. He has his own sports ties, including working on an upcoming drama series with Stephen A. Smith. And he joins a long list of ManningCast entertainment industry guests this year, including Adam Sandler, Miles Teller, Paul Rudd, Will Arnett, LL Cool J, Jason Sudeikis, Jim Gaffigan, and Luke and Owen Wilson.
Legend is doing this in interesting fashion, too. He has a concert in Portland, Oregon Monday night, and will be doing the ManningCast from there while he’s getting ready for that show. We’ll see how that goes.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.