Charles Barkley Will Be The First Guest On The Mannings New Monday Night Football Show

Peyton Manning will make his Monday Night Football debut of sorts, as he and Eli’s new megacast simulcast show on ESPN2 will have its first of 10 episodes for Ravens-Raiders.

The show’s premise is that the two brothers will hang out, watching the game and talking with friends from around the sports world. There was initially going to be a host, but ESPN decided instead to just let the two Mannings run free with the conversation without someone from the network there trying to direct traffic, and it’s going to be rather fascinating to see how it goes on this first episode — and how entertaining it can remain throughout it’s 10 game run.

Part of the formula for the show’s success is going to be the guests that come on, and for this Monday they will bring in two current NFL players, a Hall of Famer, and, who else, but Charles Barkley as the first guest on the show.

After Barkley, Ray Lewis will be on for the second quarter followed by current stars Travis Kelce and Russell Wilson. Barkley’s presence almost always makes for some entertaining TV, Lewis and the Mannings will surely be able to swap some stories from their days playing each other, and the current players will be particularly interesting given their insight into the current teams. It’s a pretty good starting guest list and we’ll see how this grows going forward.