ESPN’s Peyton Manning ‘Monday Night Football’ dream is dead

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Peyton Manning turned down ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” The Post has learned. Sources say the overriding factor was whether Manning finally wanted to enter the broadcast booth and commit to the weekly schedule in the fall. The answer remains no. Manning has declined to be an MNF analyst on multiple occasions, turning down basically every …

Peyton Manning turned down ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” The Post has learned.

Sources say the overriding factor was whether Manning finally wanted to enter the broadcast booth and commit to the weekly schedule in the fall. The answer remains no.

Manning has declined to be an MNF analyst on multiple occasions, turning down basically every network since he retired from the NFL in 2016.

ESPN and Manning’s broadcast agent, Sandy Montag, declined comment.

Manning has done “Peyton Places” and “Detail” shows for ESPN+. If he had agreed to do MNF and combined it with his current role, Manning conceivably would have been in Tony Romo’s $18 million per year neighborhood.

ESPN had dreamed of an Al Michaels and Peyton Manning booth, but NBC initially balked at letting ESPN talk to Michaels.

Michaels has two years remaining on his deal.

The exact figure ESPN was willing to offer Manning is unknown, however, according to sources, ESPN had capped its proposed offer to Tony Romo at 10 years and $140 million. ESPN never got the chance to put it in front of Romo because CBS signed Romo for $180 million in full value over 10 years.

A contract offer in the $12-$14 million range seems realistic for “Monday Night Football,” but it never fully got to that point with Manning, according to sources. Manning may have been able to top Romo’s contract if he were to combine MNF with his other two shows.

Prior to signing Romo, CBS tried to lure Manning into the booth with Jim Nantz. It offered Manning a contract that was in the range of $10-$14 million per season, according to sources, but Manning did not accept.

ESPN still has not officially relinquished play-by-player Joe Tessitore and analyst Booger McFarland from their MNF positions.

The coronavirus outbreak has slowed sports media, but officials are still doing business. ESPN executives may choose to take a break from “Monday Night Football” after plans to hire one of Romo, Manning, Drew Brees or Philip Rivers did not work out. At this point, it appears an internal solution is much more likely, though, someone like Hall of Famer Kurt Warner could still be considered.

After making an attempt at the big-name quarterbacks, ESPN could take a breath to deal with the day-to-day operations of having no games to broadcast due to the coronavirus.

ESPN has discussed a team of Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick as a possibility. The trio called the second half of the Monday Night doubleheader last year. Levy and Griese currently do college games together.

While its top college team of Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit have been mentioned for MNF, ESPN is hesitant to mess with its National Championship game-callers. Besides Levy, ESPN could consider its NBA Finals play-by-player, Mike Breen, or its college basketball lead, Dan Shulman. Neither has called football games recently.

With all that is going on in the world, ESPN could tell the NFL it is punting until next year when the network contracts of play-by-players like CBS/TNT/YES’ Ian Eagle and Fox’s Kevin Burkhardt could be up.

Nantz also has a deal that expires at the end of the year, but he is CBS’ lead play-by-play man on the Masters, the NFL and the Final Four.

In a year, ESPN could see if one of Rivers or Brees decides to retire. Someone like former quarterback and ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky could also then be a bigger candidate. Early indications were that ESPN was not going the Orlovsky route at this point. But the company’s thought process is fluid, so maybe Orlovsky could re-emerge.

Hanging over the Monday Night booth decision is that ESPN/ABC/Disney has wanted to add more NFL and specifically, at least, a Super Bowl. It has hoped to spruce up its booth to give itself the best chance possible to accomplish these goals.

At the end of the day, the networks that offer the most money will probably receive the best NFL deals, no matter their current booths.

As for Manning, with no games, ESPN2 will celebrate his 44th birthday Tuesday with five hours of programming, including some of his “Peyton Places” series.