Eli Manning Gives America the Double Bird Salute, Awkwardly Apologizes After Realizing ESPN Can’t ‘Just Blur it Out’

With rival fanbases in Washington, Dallas, and the worst – Philadelphia, Eli Manning was no stranger to playing in hostile environments during his tenure as quarterback of the New York Giants.

He’s told the story before, of a 9-year-old Eagles fan welcoming him to Philadelphia with two middle fingers, but Monday night, the two-time Super Bowl champion reenacted the NSFW moment on ESPN.

Through its first three weeks, the Eli and Peyton Manning Monday Night Football experiment has been a massive success for ESPN, with the quarterbacks depicting obvious chemistry, in-depth analysis and humor.

It continued Monday night, when the brothers welcomed Chris Long as a guest during the Cowboys-Eagles broadcast and Eli proceeded to retell the story of that 9-year-old Eagles fan.

“Do it,” Peyton joked. But Eli did, he reenacted the moment and flipped two middle fingers for all of America to see on a family friendly TV network owned by Mickey Mouse.

“Can we do that? I think you can blur that out, right?” Eli said.

But it was too late, we all saw it. And much to Eli’s surprise, ESPN wasn’t prepped to blur out both of his middle fingers during their live Monday Night Football telecast. Coming back from the next commercial break, Eli gave the classic “sorry if I offended anybody” line, to awkwardly apologize for the hilarious blunder.

“Earlier I did the double bird, I’m sorry, I guess that’s frowned upon, so I apologize if I offended anybody,” Eli said. “That’s what a 9-year-old did to me, I thought I could do it back.”

It’s strange to have to excuse a 9-year-old from giving an adult two middle fingers, but the 9-year-old was wise enough to not do it on live television, in front of a national audience.

Watch above via ESPN