When are Peyton and Eli Manning coming back to ESPN’s ‘Monday Night Football’?

What do Peyton and Eli have against the Birds?

The Eagles are taking on the Washington Commanders on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. But for the second time this season, the Manning brothers aren’t hosting their ESPN2 Monday Night Football Manningcast while the Birds are playing.

It’s the first of three weeks the former NFL quarterbacks are skipping as they get an early jump on Thanksgiving. It’s their longest break of the season after taking two weeks off in October.

It’s not like the Manning brothers don’t like the Eagles or MVP candidate Jalen Hurts, who has a relationship with the duo dating back to his time at their Manning Passing Academy during high school. Hurts made it onto the Manningcast Oct. 3, when the young Eagles quarterback (who was wearing a hoodie with the phrase “God bless whoever hating on me”) reacted to a wild video of Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, who passionately butchered Hurts’ quote about heat and thermostats.

“He’s something else. I know he’s a very passionate guy,” Hurts said of Irvin. “I was telling [my teammates], ‘We set the temperature. We don’t let anything else dictate how we respond to something. We try to control everything we can.’”

So far, the only Eagles game the Mannings have called was last season’s blowout loss to the Dallas Cowboys. The Birds certainly didn’t give Peyton and Eli much to talk about that night, but that episode did include former Eagles defender Chris Long, who drew out an often-repeated story involving Eli being flipped off by a 9-year-old Birds fans. Minutes later, Eli had to apologize after giving the double bird himself during the broadcast.

Despite the addition of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the main Monday Night Football telecast, Peyton and Eli are drawing similar ratings to last year. Through Week 9 and seven games, the duo are averaging nearly 1.4 million viewers per broadcast.

The brothers are scheduled to call four more Monday Night Football games this season for ESPN, including a wild-card game during the playoffs. The duo will return on Dec. 5 when the New Orleans Saints travel to Tampa Bay to take on Tom Brady and the Buccaneers.

Eli has a busy Thanksgiving lined up with both Ole Miss (his alma mater) and the New York Giants playing. Peyton said he’s spending his Thanksgiving with former teammate Jeff Saturday, the new head coach of the Indianapolis Colts.

“Are you offensive coordinator?” Eli joked at the end of the Ravens-Saints game.

“No,” Peyton said dryly.

Speaking of Saturday, he won his first game as the new head coach of the Colts on Sunday, defeating the Las Vegas Raiders, 25-20. But if Bill Cowher had his way, Saturday would not have been on the sideline.

The former Steelers head coach didn’t do much to hide his anger on The NFL Today Sunday about the Colts’ decision to replace fired head coach Frank Reich with Saturday, a former Colts lineman turned ESPN analyst who has zero coaching experience.

“For an owner to hire a coach who has never been an assistant at the college level or the pro level, and overseeing a lot of candidates that are qualified for that job, as we see in [Carolina Panthers interim head coach] Steve Wilks, an opportunity to build a resumé, it’s a disgrace to the coaching profession,” Cowher said. “And regardless of how this thing played out, what happened in Indianapolis is a travesty.”

Cowher is hardly alone. The NFL Network’s Kyle Brandt expressed skepticism about the hire, as did his colleague Joe Thomas, who called it “one of the most disrespectful things I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” Some of Saturday’s ESPN colleagues also weren’t thrilled by the move, including First Take host Stephen A. Smith and NFL analysts Louis Reddick and Ryan Clark.

“I think Jeff Saturday is a good man. I’m just concerned with what you’ve earned,” Clark said last week, adding it is just “another time when somebody has jumped the line.”

Eagles fans will get a good look at Saturday next week, when the Eagles travel to Indianapolis to take on the Colts on Nov. 20 on CBS.