Manning addresses 'Quarterback' casting issues: 'I'm swallowing my pride'

Peyton Manning acknowledges that it's been a struggle to find signal-callers willing to appear on the upcoming season of the Netflix series "Quarterback."

The Pro Football Hall of Famer, who's an executive producer on the show, told Julian Sancton of the Hollywood Reporter that multiple quarterbacks passed on the opportunity to star in the second season.

"To use a cheesy analogy, we're definitely in the two-minute drill here," Manning said in late August. "I'd love for someone to call us back and say, 'I want to do it.' I had three starting quarterbacks tell me no yesterday, so I'm swallowing my pride."

The first season of "Quarterback" aired in July and followed Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota during their 2022 campaigns. The eight episodes totaled 3.3 million views and 21.4 million hours viewed.

The cast of the second season has yet to be announced, but several quarterbacks have publicly stated that they turned down the show, including Justin Fields, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, Trevor Lawrence, and Daniel Jones.

Manning said he thinks some quarterbacks may view the show as a "distraction" and admitted that he himself likely would've said no to it as well when he was still playing.

"But," he added, "if a quarterback that I respected told me, 'Hey, trust me, we're going to do right by you, you are not going to regret it, we're going to cut out anything you don't want in there, you won't even know we're there,' then I probably would have said, 'Yeah, I might as well do it.'"

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