For the second time this season, ESPN is rolling out a Monday Night Football doubleheader, but it will mark the first time this season that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are under the bright lights of primetime.
It's a bit of an adjustment from what Bucs fans are used to seeing over the past three years. Tom Brady brought national attention, and a high number of primetime games each season for the Bucs. Everything shifted as soon as he retired, though, something that was reflected as soon as the schedule came out and Tampa Bay only snagged a pair of primetime games.
The first of those games is tonight against the reigning NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles.
It's a game that, when the schedule came out, everyone assumed would be a snoozer. Instead, both teams are undefeated and there's a real outside chance that the Bucs can find a way to pull off an upset win.
What channel is Monday Night Football on tonight? (September
Before we even think about the Bucs pulling off an upset, we need to clarify where to watch the game. Usually Monday Night Football is easy to find -- although Spectrum made it hard for viewers in Florida to watch ESPN at the beginning of the month.
Tonight's Bucs-Eagles game will not be on ESPN. The second game of the doubleheader is the Bengals-Rams which is going to kick off at 8:15 pm ET and air on ESPN, while the Bucs-Eagles game kicks off an hour earlier and is being broadcast on ABC.
So the good news is that if you're still having issues getting ESPN through your cable provider, the Bucs game is going to be on one of the big four networks and will be as easy to find as Dancing With The Stars (or the Golden Bachelor, both of which I'm sure we'll see plenty of promos for tonight).
Do not tune into ESPN for tonight's game because you're going to get an entirely different one than the game you want to watch.
Just so we're clear, here's all the information you need to catch the Bucs-Eagles game:
- Date: Monday, September 25th
- Start Time: 7:15 pm ET
- Location: Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL
- TV Channel: ABC
- Announcers: Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters
- Live Stream: ESPN+
There will not be a ManningCast tonight either, so don't go searching for that broadcast. It's a bummer because it would have been great to hear Peyton and Eli talk about Baker and the Bucs but we can't have every nice thing we want.