Athletes and Saturday Night Live don’t mix, as a rule. As a very true, almost inviolable, proven-time-and-time-again rule. Still, when scraping the bottom of SNL’s 47-season deep barrel for even marginally acceptable jock hosting gigs and appearances, Peyton Manning’s 2007, Season 31 hosting stint is generally held up as the class of a truly underwhelming (some might say cringeworthy) draft. Especially that short where he just wails on a whole lot of little kids.
So maybe it’s not that surprising that Manning’s appearance on last night’s Willem Dafoe-hosted Saturday Night Live was above-average for a former pro athlete drop-in. But you have to give credit where it’s due—Manning’s Weekend Update segment was genuinely hilarious, as the two-time Super Bowl champion waved off anchor Colin Jost’s prompts for some playoff football talk in favor of an extended and enthusiastic tribute to his newest bingeing obsession, Emily In Paris.
Now, the “jock likes lady stuff” switcheroo might be hacky, but dammit if the former Colt and Bronco didn’t rattle off his gushing lines with crack comic commitment and timing. Even busting out the telestrator for an Xs and Os breakdown of just how Emily’s work and career ambitions keep interfering with her forward progress, Manning went above and beyond the one-joke idea to actually contribute an unimpeachably funny addition to what was, overall, a pretty middling episode of sketch comedy.
Happily revealing that he didn’t bother to watch last week’s playoff excitement because he’d wound up plowing right through Emily In Paris’ second season, Manning chattered away like a real Emily-head. Asked about the will-he/won’t-he of former nemesis Tom Brady’s impending retirement, Manning could only defer to Emily’s struggles with the work/life balance for comparison, noting how Tom at least doesn’t have all those exes (sorry Xs) to worry about. (Do not get Manning started on Doug from Chicago.)
And then there are all Emily’s “lewks,”(“looks,” as Manning explained to a befuddled Jost) as the former footballer extolled star Lily Collins’ fashion choices, and cited the Netflix series for having “a fresh take on feminism—finally!” Manning’s own sketchy history in that area notwithstanding, the startlingly assured four-and-a-half minute performance was all cracker-jack timing and forward momentum. Almost enough to give SNL athletes a good name. Almost.
