You never know unless you ask.
We had an absolute classic for the first Monday Night Football game of the 2025 season, with Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears taking on JJ McCarthy and the Minnesota Vikings.
It was a slow start for McCarthy, the rookie QB out of Michigan. The Bears were up 17-6 with 13 minutes left in the game, and the Vikings didn’t even convert their first third down of the game until the fourth quarter when McCarthy threw a touchdown pass to Justin Jefferson to cut their deficit to just 5 points.
From there, the Minnesota defense stepped up and shut down Williams and the Bears, and McCarthy seemed to finally find his rhythm, hitting Aaron Jones for a touchdown to take their first lead of the night and then adding on a 14-yard rushing TD with just under 3 minutes left in the game to stretch their lead to 10.
It was too much for Williams and the Bears to overcome, as the Minnesota Vikings managed to stun the crowd at Soldier Field – and Bears fans everywhere.
One of those Bears fans who very well may have been watching the game was…Pope Leo XIV. The first ever American-born pontiff is originally from Chicago, and is a self-professed fan of the White Sox and, of course, Da Bears.
So why not have the team’s most famous fan on during the game?
That was apparently Peyton Manning’s thinking going into week one as the ManningCast returned to ESPN2. The alternate broadcast featuring Peyton and his brother Eli Manning has featured some high-profile guests in the past, including NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Taylor Swift’s fiance Travis Kelce, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Lil Wayne. But for a Bears game, it doesn’t get much bigger than the literal Pope – and apparently Peyton Manning decided to shoot his shot:
“Kinda like I failed to recruit Randy Moss to Tennessee, I couldn’t close the Pope, but I made the effort Eli, and that’s the kind of effort we make here at ESPN2.”
As it turns out, Peyton actually sent two handwritten letters trying to get the Pope to join the show, one to the pontiff himself and one to his executive assistant.
Now, the letter’s a little hard to read, but Peyton starts out by introducing himself, just in case the Pope doesn’t know who he is:
“My name is Peyton Manning and I’m a former quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos in the National Football League. Currently, my brother Eli and I co-host a football broadcast on ESPN2 that we call the ManningCast. We’d love for you to be a guest on our show.”
Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like they ever heard back from His Holiness, but Peyton made clear that Pope Leo has an open invitation any time he wants to come on:
“If you’re watching, Your Holiness, this is an open invitation. Come on the show anytime. It’s you, it’s Tiger Woods, it’s Bradley Cooper, it’s President Bush, it’s Larry David. Y’all are our most wanted on that list for the ManningCast. Come anytime, we’d love to have you Your Holiness.”
I mean, when you’re ranking the Pope up there with Larry David and Bradley Cooper, he should realize what an honor it is.
Luckily for the Pope, Da Bears are on Monday Night Football again in week six for a game against the Washington Commanders on October 13, so he has another chance to appear while his favorite team is playing.
What a time to be alive.
