Bill Simmons, Eli Manning Trade Jabs Over Iconic Helmet Catch on ‘ManningCast’

The diehard Boston sports fan got to air some grievances during his Monday Night Football appearance.

Sports losses are tough to take, especially for the diehard fans. During Monday night’s ManningCast broadcast for the Patriots-Cardinals game, one of sports’ most well-known fans got the chance to re-examine perhaps the most painful of all losses with the very opponent responsible for it.

Bill Simmons joined Peyton and Eli Manning to watch the second quarter of the game, and it didn’t take long for the topic of Super Bowl XLII to get brought up. That was the game where Eli’s Giants famously upset the undefeated Patriots, something that the Boston sports fan clearly is still upset about nearly 15 years later.

Within the first two minutes of joining the broadcast, Simmons attempted the first dig by asking Manning about what he believed were missed holding calls by the officials during Manning’s now-iconic “helmet catch” play where he avoided a pass rush and found David Tyree for a long completion during New York’s game-winning touchdown drive.

.@BillSimmons is living his worst nightmare with Peyton & Eli 😭

"I still look at you guys and see three Super Bowls my team didn't win." pic.twitter.com/aLaKvQUUyG

— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) December 13, 2022

The broadcast later showed Simmons a photo of him and his father taken from that game, just before the Giants took the lead for good. Simmons called it “one of the worst half-hour sports sequences” of his life.

Later on, the Mannings pulled a fast one on Simmons by forcing him to watch the helmet catch play live on air, much to Simmons’ chagrin.

Peyton & Eli really made @BillSimmons watch the Helmet Catch again 😬😭 pic.twitter.com/MCVqGb73uU

— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) December 13, 2022

Not willing to concede his point, Simmons immediately responded by pointing out a missed holding call by the officials. After all these years, clearly this is not a case where time has healed all wounds.