The Patriots turned down a very conventional request from Peyton Manning ahead of their Monday night win over the Bills

ManningCast’s return to Monday’s AFC East match between Patriots and Bill means the return of Peyton Manning broadcast on ESPN2.

ManningCast is a new way to watch football and it features Peyton hosting a show with Eli where they spent most of the game Monday night talking about the finer points of things happening on the field. Before each game, Peyton likes to do his homework by talking to each starting midfielder, but he wasn’t able to do that in Week 13 and that’s because the Patriots declined a request to speak. his Mac Jones.

During Monday night’s ManningCast, Peyton revealed that he actually called Jones on the phone, but Jones didn’t want to do the interview unless Peyton went through the proper channels and that’s when things went awry. for the quarterback of the Hall of Fame.

“Well, I tried talking to Mac Jones, and he was very respectful,” Peyton said in the broadcast. “He said, ‘Peyton, I want to do it, but can you call our PR director, Stacey? [James]? Because he has to oversee everything. I said, ‘It’s okay.’ I called Stacey, he was very professional. I said, ‘Stacey, I’m talking to Coach Belichick, can I talk to Mac Jones?’ And I have to tell you, I appreciate the way they handled Mac Jones. They’re trying to protect him, give him as few distractions off the pitch as possible, so he can focus on playing football. “

Monday’s game was the eighth episode of ManningCast, and over those eight episodes, Peyton has been allowed to speak to 15 of the 16 starting quarterbacks he has attempted to interview.

“So yeah, I was turned down. That’s the first quarterback I haven’t talked to,” said Peyton, via Pro Football Talk.

Even though Peyton was turned down, he certainly doesn’t have any hard feelings towards the Patriots and that’s because he understands why they turned him down.

“I appreciate that,” Peyton said. “[Former Indianapolis GM] Bill Polian, as a rookie to me with Colts, did the same thing. He didn’t let the marketing department talk to me, the public relations department to me. He said, ‘Hey, it’s all football in this first season. Don’t bother him. ‘ And I think the Patriots are taking the same approach with Mac Jones, and it’s paying off. It is working. “

The good news for Peyton is that if there’s one week where he doesn’t need to interview the starting midfielder, it could be this week. In the Patriots’ 14-10 win, Mac Jones did nothing more, throwing only three passes all game, setting the franchise record for the fewest passes in a game.

It was such a bizarre performance that the Patriots star, Matthew Judon, even joked about it afterward.

Over there supposedly two more ManningCasts this season and there could be one more rookie QB on the schedule if Mannings decides to include the Vikings-Bears game in Week 15. If that happens, it will be interesting to see if Bear decide to do Justin Fields available or if they go the way of the Patriots and shoot down Peyton’s claim.