Monday’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Kansas City Chiefs game marks the fifth ManningCast alternate broadcast in a row, this time on ESPN2 and ESPN+. And Peyton and Eli Manning again have some notable guests planned.
One of those will be NBC Sports’ Maria Taylor, host of the Sunday Football Night In America pregame show.
Taylor is an interesting guest on a number of levels. To start with, she continues the number of guests the Mannings have brought on who are active NFL broadcasters on other networks, including CBS’ Matt Ryan and NFL Network’s Scott Hanson. Most networks’ NFL coverage is quite focused on their own personalities, but while the Mannings definitely feature ESPN talent as well, their guest selection goes well beyond that.
Taylor’s recent work at NBC (she started on Football Night In America in 2021 and took over the hosting role in 2022 when Mike Tirico shifted to Sunday Night Football play-by-play) also adds to the numbers of women with high-level NFL broadcasting or media roles. So she’s a notable guest on that front as well.
It’s also significant to see Taylor back on an ESPN platform. She worked for the network from 2013 to 2021 before leaving amidst controversy over Rachel Nichols’ comments on her but quickly wound up in a highly prominent role at NBC. There, she’s been a key figure on the Olympics as well as the NFL, and she may have more to do down the road, perhaps with the NBA once that deal kicks in next year. So she seems to be in a good spot, and, interestingly, she is willing to return to ESPN platforms for this guest appearance (although the actual ManningCast is an Omaha Productions/ESPN collaboration, not just a straight ESPN one).
Taylor will be appearing on what should be a game with some interesting elements. Buccaneers-Chiefs is a rematch of Super Bowl LV in February 2021, which Tampa Bay won, but the Chiefs are having a stronger season this year. They’re 7-0 (despite less-than-normal stats from Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce), while the Bucs are 4-4. We’ll see how this game goes and what Taylor has to talk about with the Mannings here.
