Peyton Manning and Eli Manning gave us another entertaining Manning Cast episode when they took the booth with Dwayne Johnson in the Rams-Cardinals Wild Card game.
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The Wild Card matchup itself wasn’t too entertaining as the #4 Rams demolished the #5 Arizona Cardinals 34-11. The two teams met for the third time this year as both teams reside in the NFC West. They split the two matchups with each team winning on the road, but this time Los Angeles defended their home field giving Matthew Stafford and Odell Beckham Jr. their first career playoff victories.
The Rams will now travel to Tampa Bay next week to take on Tom Brady and the defending champions, a rematch of their regular season bout. Los Angeles took that matchup 34-24, but the playoffs are a different animal, and Tampa Bay will surely be more ready this time around.
However, while the game itself wasn’t too interesting, Peyton and Eli Manning definitely gave us some hilarious moments while hosting Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Peyton Manning got sick of the referees, roasting them with Dwayne Johnson and Eli Manning
NFL referees were under the microscope during the Wild Card games. Right from the start of the first round of the playoffs till the end, fans and players were frustrated with NFL referees.
It all started with the Bengals-Raiders game. Joe Burrow appeared to hit Tyler Boyd in the back of the endzone for a clutch touchdown. However, referees had blown their whistle midway through the play, sparking controversy about whether the play should have counted. The refs ruled that the play counted, and in a 26-19 loss, fans were all over social media, split over what they believed was right.
Then, in the Cowboys-49ers game, we had another bit of controversy. With 14 seconds left in the game, down by 7, the Cowboys ran a QB draw down the middle of the field. After the play, Dak Prescott rushed to get the next snap off as his team ran to get into position.
However, a ref collided with the Dallas QB while running to get into position, time ran out, and the game ended without Dallas getting another play. Once more fans were split about the play as many people believed the collision cost Dallas precious time while others argued that the refs have to touch the ball before each play and Dak should have located the ref first instead of trying to get the snap off.
While there was nothing controversial in the Rams-Cardinals game, the second quarter of the game featured many reviews and instant replays which annoyed Peyton Manning because of how slow the game was going.
“We’re getting a lot of referee work in this game. We’d like to see some more completion by the Cardinals. No. 19, the referee, is our leading receiver right now for the Cardinals. He’s getting more action than anyone else on the team, Dwayne. … We got another commercial. There’s a shock. Dwayne, you’re gonna be late to work tomorrow. This second quarter is going to be the longest in the history.”
Eli Manning also chimed in, “They’re challenging the challenge? Lot of challenges. A lot of reviews going on here so far.” While they were blasting the referees, the Manning brothers and Dwayne Johnson got to share some interesting stories and roast each other.
