Peyton and Eli Manning returned to the NFL on Monday night, reviving the "ManningCast" for coverage of the Buccaneers' rematch with the Saints. It turns out they'll also return to the field later this year. Sort of. During Monday's game, the Manning brothers announced they will serve as the respective head coaches for the AFC and NFC teams at the 2023 Pro Bowl Games.
A new spin on the Pro Bowl, the Games will trade a full-contact exhibition for a weeklong series of skills competitions and flag football matchups. To be specific, three different seven-on-seven flag games will be held on the culminating Sunday of the competition, each of them lasting 20 minutes and counting toward a cumulative AFC versus NFC score. Peyton will officially lead the AFC squad from the sidelines, while Eli will lead the NFC, with additional assistant coaches to be announced later.
The elder Manning, of course, spent his entire Hall of Fame career in the AFC with the Colts (1998-2011) and Broncos (2012-2015), representing the conference 14 different times at the Pro Bowl. Eli, meanwhile, spent his entire 16-year career in the NFC with the Giants (2004-2019), earning four Pro Bowl nods during that time.
As head coaches for the Pro Bowl Games, the Mannings will help determine which of the 44 current players voted into the 2023 Pro Bowl will partake in skills competitions and/or the flag football games, per NFL Media, and create lineups for said games.
