Former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Philip Rivers called it a career this week but it seems he may be the subject of some interest from ESPN as an NFL analyst.
Though Rivers plans on being a high school football head coach in Alabama, ESPN is reportedly going to talk with the 39-year-old for a potential role in the booth on Monday Night Football—just as they have for years with Peyton Manning—per Andrew Marchand of The New York Post.
ESPN will talk with recently retired quarterback Philip Rivers about joining the network as an NFL analyst, according to sources, and if Peyton Manning suddenly decided he wanted to be in the broadcast booth, the network would keep the door open.
It isn’t clear whether Rivers wants to join the booth so quickly after retiring. He seemed at peace with his decision to hang up the spikes this offseason and the plan all along has been for him to coach high school football.
But ESPN has seemingly been searching for their Tony Romo since he brought his magic over to CBS with Jim Nantz. ESPN has been trying for years to get Manning in the booth, but he hasn’t shown interest in doing so.
The crew on Monday Night Football was far less scrutinized in 2020. With Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Brian Griese in the booth, the calls weren’t the subject of criticism as it was in 2019.
But Marchand’s report states that ESPN could be looking to expand their crew if the network were to take on more games.
ESPN executives felt that broadcast booth righted the shaky MNF ship, appreciated that they weren’t the focus of social media critiques every week and — probably most importantly — believe the trio will build further chemistry with another year together. They also had to debut as a national team while limited by pandemic restrictions.
With that said, the Rivers talk could take an interesting turn because there is a chance ESPN adds more games in the forthcoming new TV rights deals, according to sources. As talks continue between all the networks and NFL executives, the idea of additional games on ESPN/ABC’s schedule in the future has been broached, perhaps in the form of building more MNF doubleheaders.
It remains to be seen what will happen for Rivers, but this might be something to look forward to if he winds up taking an analyst job.
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