Emmanuel Acho didn’t need much to make his point about the ManningCast. After ESPN2’s alternate Monday Night Football broadcast posted a rough Week 1 number for the start of the 2026 season, Acho went straight at the format.
The ManningCast drew just 705,000 viewers for the Broncos-Chiefs game, and the report also said the show accounted for roughly three percent of MNF’s audience on ESPN. Acho’s reaction landed on Thursday, and he framed the issue as a misuse of Peyton Manning’s biggest strength.
"Taking maybe the greatest football mind of all time and turning him into a sit-down comedian was definitely a choice," Acho tweeted on Thursday.
Peyton and Eli Manning launched ManningCast in 2021, and the show has long been positioned as an alternate take on Monday Night Football. This season’s opening week, though, brought a noticeable dip in interest.
While the ManningCast numbers were making the rounds, another Peyton Manning story surfaced elsewhere on Thursday. Kenny Chesney, the singer and longtime Tennessee Volunteer fan, told a funny Peyton anecdote on the "Big Day with Peter Schrager" show.
Chesney said that while he was on tour, he wanted to find a football field so he could run routes for Manning, who has been a close friend for more than three decades. Manning, Chesney said, wasn’t interested in the idea.
“When Peyton first got in the league, before he started training camp, just as a way to clear his mind and get his brain ready, he would actually go out on the road with us for a weekend,” Chesney said. “He would be standing on stage and he had this big hat on and he had a guitar strapped on his shoulder, but he couldn’t play it. He never changed chords."
Manning’s football résumé remains as polished as ever. He played 18 NFL seasons, spending 14 years with the Colts from 1998 to 2011 and four with the Broncos from 2012 to 2015. He won his first Super Bowl with Indianapolis in 2007 and added another with Denver in 2016.
In Other News...
Broncos Facing Early Pressure After Brutal Week 2 Forecast
Denvers opening loss to Kansas City already put the Broncos in an uneasy spot, and the offenses rough showing did little to calm concerns about how quickly this season can get away from them. Now the conversation has shifted to Week 2, where the Jacksonville Jaguars come in after a convincing win over the Cleveland Browns and with enough momentum to make an early-season trip to Denver feel like a far tougher test than the schedule might suggest.
ESPN analyst Pamela Maldonado has already added to the pressure by projecting another Broncos loss, a forecast that would send Denver to 0-2 and turn the first two weeks into an urgent reset point. For a team trying to avoid digging too deep a hole this early, the matchup suddenly carries more weight than a typical September game, with the Broncos left to answer whether last week was a bad start or a warning sign. [Read more 🡒]
Broncos Have No Excuse To Let This Home Bounce-Back Spot Slip
After a Week 1 loss, Denver gets a quick chance to steady itself at home against a Jacksonville team that arrives with some momentum but also the early uncertainty that comes with a new regime. On paper, this is the kind of matchup the Broncos should be able to lean into. Their roster looks stronger overall, and a home opener after an opening-week setback is the sort of spot good teams use to get back on track.
The Jaguars have played well enough recently to make this more than a layup, so Denver cannot treat it like a routine rebound. Still, if the Broncos are going to live up to the talent on the roster, this is exactly the sort of game they need to handle. The opportunity is there, the setting is favorable, and the pressure now is on Denver to make sure a winnable home game does not turn into an early-season missed chance. [Read more 🡒]
Broncos Week 1 Mess Leaves One Big Question For Jaguars
Denvers Week 1 showing against Kansas City left plenty for Sean Payton to clean up before the Broncos turn to Jacksonville in Week 2. The defense missed too many tackles, and the offense had its own problems under new coordinator Davis Webb, making the opener look more like a rough first draft than a finished product. Even so, there is still a belief around the league that Payton can steer this group back into form, especially with his track record as a play-caller and an early schedule that does the Broncos no favors.
Jacksonville is preparing for a version of Denver that should look sharper than the one that stumbled out of the gate Sunday. The Jaguars do not expect the tackling to stay that poor, which is part of what makes the matchup interesting: Denver has clear room to improve, and the urgency is already obvious. The bigger question is how quickly Webb can settle his unit down while Payton tries to keep the Broncos from letting one bad opener turn into an early-season trend. [Read more 🡒]