ESPN and Jason Kelce will take over Xfinity Live! ahead of ‘Monday Night Football’

Jason Kelce won’t be back with the Eagles this season, but he’ll be hitting some familiar spots in Philly when the Birds take on the Atlanta Falcons in Week 2 at the Linc on Monday Night Football.

ESPN’s newest personality will make his Monday Night Countdown debut on Sept. 9 ahead of the Week 1 matchup between the New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers, but he’ll be back in Philadelphia the following week for the Birds’ Sept. 16 home opener. Ahead of the game, Kelce and his ESPN cohosts — Scott Van Pelt, Ryan Clark, and Marcus Spears — will do their pregame show from Xfinity Live!, where the ex-Eagles star will get to display the fan-friendly charm that helped him land at the network.

“It’s a bold decision,” Kelce told The Inquirer. “It’s going to be crazy. I really don’t know how it’s going to work.”

Said Van Pelt: “If we all make it out alive, I will consider that a win. And if we don’t, then we will have gone out in glory.”

All the major networks were interested in adding Kelce to their NFL rosters, but one reason ESPN appealed to him was the chance to do a studio show on the road at packed stadiums, according to Burke Magnus, ESPN’s president of content. Outside of a handful of Monday Night Football doubleheaders, Kelce will be interacting with fans in the stands, which in the past has led to some memorable moments.

So if he downs a few beers with Eagles fans, ESPN executives won’t mind.

“We want him to be him,” Magnus said. “We don’t want him to try and be somebody else.”

Kelce has made one appearance so far on ESPN — he participated in studio coverage of the Hall of Fame game earlier this month in Canton, Ohio. He also appeared on Amazon’s Thursday Night Football studio show last season during the Eagles’ bye week, but his goal in Philadelphia on Week 2 is to avoid getting hammered like Pat McAfee ahead of last weekend’s Georgia Tech-Florida State game in Dublin, Ireland.

“I’m just trying not to end up like Pat,” Kelce joked. “I’m looking forward to participating in tailgates for the first time in a long time, outside of Buffalo this past year. It’s going to be wild.”

» READ MORE: Jason and Travis Kelce land nine-figure ‘New Heights’ deal with Amazon

Manningcast, the alternate Monday Night Football telecast on ESPN2 featuring Peyton and Eli Manning, will be back for its fourth season. So far, ESPN hasn’t announced which games the Manning brothers will call, but one will be Eagles-Falcons in Week 2, according to network sources.

It will be the fifth time Manningcast features the Eagles. During the Eagles’ win against the Kansas City Chiefs last season, Peyton and Eli spoke to former Birds quarterback-turned-Fox NFL analyst Michael Vick, when he admitted he played as Peyton — and not himself — in Madden football. Jalen Hurts was also a guest in 2022 (wearing a hoodie with the phrase “God bless whoever hating on me”), when he reacted to a wild video of Hall of Famer Michael Irvin hilariously butchering a Hurts quote about heat and thermostats.

A new wrinkle will be the addition of former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who will appear as a guest during the first half of every episode. He and Peyton will also cohost a new ESPN+ show called The Breakdown, which will stream Fridays and feature Peyton and Belichick offering a “film room, schematic breakdown” of the teams that will appear on the next Manningcast Monday Night Football show. That means the duo will be breaking down Hurts and the Eagles on Sept. 13.

Despite his reputation for being guarded with his comments, Belichick did surprisingly well analyzing this year’s NFL draft — and Eagles top pick Quinyon Mitchell — with McAfee. Peyton told Puck’s John Ourand they’ve had a few rehearsals with Belichick, and he thinks viewers will come away smarter after hearing his analysis. It also helps that Belichick’s Patriots lost two Super Bowls to Eli’s New York Giants.

“What made Bill a natural fit is he doesn’t like Eli,” Peyton joked on Ourand’s podcast, The Varsity. “I said, ‘Bill, you’re going to fit in great.’”