Eagles-Packers: Latest on ESPN-YouTubeTV dispute, Jason Kelce’s serious turn, and more

The Eagles will play their first game in 15 days when they take on the Green Bay Packers tonight on ESPN’s Monday Night Football.

Unfortunately, some fans in Philly and across the country won’t be able to tune in.

An ongoing dispute between YouTube TV and Disney has left ESPN, ABC, and a handful of other channels dark on the so-called “skinny bundle” for more than a week, with no end in site.

The two sides continued to negotiate throughout the day Monday but remained far apart on dollars — Disney wants more money than parent-company Google wants to pay.

On Sunday, hopes of a potential deal got dimmer when YouTube TV announced a $20 credit for customers due to the continued outage of Disney’s channels.

YouTube TV has grown into the third-largest cable distributor in the country with about 10 million subscribers, trailing only Comcast and Charter. Not surprisingly, ESPN’s college football and Monday Night Football ratings were down slightly last week, which most experts attribute to the blackout.

Networks ending up blacked out over carriage disputes is rare, and ones lasting this long are even rarer, though they happen. TelevisaUnivision has been dark on YouTube TV since late September, and Disney-owned Fubo hasn’t had TNT or TBS since April 2024 due to a carriage dispute with Warner Bros. Discovery.

It’s the first of two Monday Night Football appearances this season for the Eagles. Hopefully, this dispute is settled before the Birds take on the Los Angeles Chargers on ESPN Dec. 8.

Here’s everything you need to know to watch or stream Eagles-Packers.

While ESPN will likely remain blacked out on YouTube, there are a host of services that will stream tonight’s Monday Night Football game.

The most obvious is ESPN Unlimited, the network’s new subscription streaming service that includes every game that airs on all 12 ESPN networks. The service runs $29.99 a month.

You can also stream tonight’s game on a host of other skinny bundles, including Hulu + Live TV ($64.99 a month for three months), Sling ($4.99 for one day pass, $60.99 a month), Fubo ($84.99 a month with a free trial), and DirecTV Stream ($94.99 a month with a free trial).

If you’re just planning to watch the game on your phone or tablet, you can stream it on NFL+, the league’s mobile subscription streaming service. NFL+ runs $6.99 a month.

Because the game is simulcasting on ABC, most fans who live in and around Philadelphia and other cities should be able to stream the game for free using a digital antenna.

6abc’s signal in Philadelphia can be finicky. The station suggests an all-band antenna that covers Low-VHF, High VHF and UHF with long elements (rabbit ears for those of you old enough) that should be fully extended.

The Channel Master website has specific information about what channels are available using your address.

In his second season with ESPN, former Eagles star Jason Kelce has become known for his crowd-pleasing antics and fun-loving outfits, from his “South Philly tuxedo” to a Bills Mafia getup inspired by Fred Flintstone.

For tonight’s game, Kelce took a more serious tone for a featured story about Rodney Davis, the grandfather of Eagles offensive lineman Tyler Steen, whose heroic death during the Vietnam War saved the lives of several members of his platoon.

Davis was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor after jumping on a grenade that landed in a bunker where he and five other soldiers were pinned down by enemy fire in 1967. He was 25, the same age Steen is now.

“He gave his life for his, for his ...” said an emotional Samantha Steen, Davis’ daughter and Steen’s mother. “He gave up his life for other Marines.”

Kelce signed a three-year deal with ESPN last season, just one of the many post-Eagles gigs the future Hall of Famer lined up for himself. The fate of one of those gigs — a limited late-night show on ESPN2 during the playoffs — has yet to be announced.

Peyton and Eli Manning will be back on ESPN2 tonight for the Manningcast, and they’ll be welcoming some Philly star power to their Monday Night Football alternative broadcast

Quinta Brunson, the star and creator of Abbott Elementary, and comedian Shane Gillis will appear as guests tonight. It’s unclear when either will join the show.

Also joining the show will be Disney CEO Bob Iger, a lifelong Packers fan whose appearance coincided with the company’s dispute with YouTube TV.

It’ll be the sixth time the Eagles have appeared on the Manningcast, which is quietly in its fifth season at ESPN. Last season, Peyton and Eli turned to Downingtown native Miles Teller during the Eagles’ loss to the Atlanta Falcons in Week 2.

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts — who attended the Mannings’ quarterback camp while a sophomore at Alabama — was a guest in 2022, where he revealed he liked to watch game tape of former San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers and wore a hoodie with the phrase, “God bless whoever hating on me.”

The newest episode of Manning’s ESPN+ show, Peyton’s Places, was also Eagles-centric. It featured a trip to Philadelphia to learn about the origins of the Tush Push from Kelce. Not surprisingly, Manning came away a fan.

“Other teams, it’s a copycat league, and if you can copycat it, you will. If you can’t, then you probably complain that it’s not fair,” Manning told The Inquirer. “So I’m on the Eagles’ side of it. I think it’s their niche, and it works, and they make it happen.”

The Eagles were overtaken Sunday by the Seattle Seahawks, who moved into the top spot in the NFC thanks to their blowout win against the Arizona Cardinals.

If the Eagles win tonight, they’ll move back into first place because they’d hold the tiebreaker against the Seahawks with a better conference record.

NFC standings

NFC East standings

Staff writers Jeff McLane, Olivia Reiner, and Jeff Neiburg will be covering the action live on Inquirer.com.

Notes and observations about the game can be found at Inquirer.com/Eagles. Don’t forget to subscribe to our free Sports Daily newsletter.

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