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Boomer Esiason On Staying With WFAN Mornings, Not Doing Super Bowl Radio Row

“There’s nothing like being the first behind the mic after a big game.”

Ricky Keeler

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Earlier this week, Boomer & Gio were named as the number two major market sports radio morning show in the country on the BSM Top 20. For someone like Boomer Esiason, he appreciates the journey that the morning team at WFAN has taken together and doesn’t want to leave that.

Esiason was a guest on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with Jimmy Traina this week. During their conversation, he mentioned having a chance to move to the afternoon when Mike Francesa decided to leave and WFAN thought about putting him back together with Craig Carton. Ultimately, he turned it down:

“If I didn’t love what I do, I wouldn’t do it. They did ask me to move to the afternoons when Mike left and they were thinking about reuniting me with Craig and all that other stuff,” said Esiason. “I was like, man, I don’t want to leave the morning. Look what we’ve built here. When I was saying ‘we,’ I mean also Eddie Scozzare, Al Dukes, Jerry Recco, Bobby Dwyer. I mean we all built it together. I wanted to stay there and I know those guys wanted to stay there.

“I could’ve easily went to the afternoons, but then I was like then my whole life is going to change again. I’ve got this routine, I’ve got it all down. I understand what’s going on, I know what my responsibilities are. There’s nothing like being the first behind the mic after a big game.”

Being on the air to talk about the Super Bowl Monday morning was one of the reasons, according to the former Bengals QB, that he did not make the trip to Los Angeles this weekend to watch Cincinnati try to win its first Super Bowl in franchise history:

“It’s one of the reasons why I think I decided not to go out to the Super Bowl this year is because I want to be able to watch it and then talk about it the next day coherently and not be drunk or hungover from being at the game and watching the game with my former teammates,” Esiason explained. “It’s a labor of love for sure, but I think both Gio (Gregg Giannotti) and I and the rest of our crew don’t mind getting up and getting our day started.”

This year, Boomer & Gio were not at Radio Row for the Super Bowl unlike some of the other shows on CBS Sports Radio and CBS Sports Network. However, Esiason didn’t mind that because it allows the show to continue as normally as possible:

“I’m not big on Super Bowl shows. I hate the interviews. Everyone is pushing a product,” he said. “Hell, I was pushing a product for a lot of those years, so I understand all that. At the end of the day, being back in our studio, being able to have a normal type of show and a normal conversation depending on what’s going on around here to me is more entertaining to the listener anyway.”

While Esiason gives a lot of credit to Gio and Carton for the way they handle those interviews on Radio Row and thinks those interviews are entertaining for the hosts, he knows they don’t exactly fare well with the audience the show is trying to appeal to:

“Both Gio and Craig Carton are really good interviewers. They have a unique way of bringing personality into the subjects that we’re talking to,” said Esiason.

“The fact that I am a former NFL player and some guys feel a little bit more comfortable maybe with me up there and those guys asking ridiculous questions. It actually was entertaining at least for us individually. But we know back home it doesn’t sound right, there’s a lot of background noise. It gets a little awkward at times… Those things sometimes lend to funny interviews and awkward moments, but I don’t think overall the entertainment value is there.”

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Doug Gottlieb Details Interviewing For College Basketball Head Coaching Vacancy

“I’ve told people that for the radio element to — for the right thing — I’d give it up. The (podcast), I’m not giving it up.”

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Fox Sports Radio host Doug Gottlieb recently interviewed for the vacant head coaching job at Wisconsin-Green Bay and detailed the experience on his podcast.

“I got a chance to talk to (Wisconsin-Green Bay AD) Josh Moon several times during the year after they had made their coaching job available and my approach to how I’ve done these things — and this is not the first time I’ve gone down this path, but this was a different path,” Gottlieb said on his All Ball podcast.

“This is a low-major, mid-major job, and there’s no connection there. I’ve told people that for the radio element to — for the right thing — I’d give it up. The (podcast), I’m not giving it up. I love doing it and I think there’s a very smart world where if I’m coaching I can still do this podcast and still do it with basketball people all over the country and the world, and it’s kind of like a cheat code.”

He continued by saying that seeing Shaka Smart be successful at Marquette has motivated him to continue to search for the right fit as a college basketball coach.

“That’s what I want to do. And last year when I was coaching in Israel, that also continued to invigorate me…this is something that I would really like to do. It has to be the right thing. It has to be the right AD who hits the right message.”

He continued by saying that a sticking point of negotiations was he wasn’t willing to give up his nationally syndicated radio program for the job. He was willing to take less money for his assistants pool, but also to continue doing his radio show.

Gottlieb did not get the position with the Phoenix, noting that he was a finalist but was never offered the job. The position ultimately went to Wyoming assistant coach Sundance Wicks. Wicks had previous head coaching experience and had worked with Green Bay athletic director Josh Moon at Division II Northern State. He admitted he wasn’t necessarily “all-in” on the job due to the current ages of his children and whether the timing was right to uproot his family to move to Northeastern Wisconsin.

The Fox Sports Radio host does have coaching experience. He has worked as a coach for the U.S. men’s basketball team at the Maccabiah Games, sometimes referred to as the Jewish Olympics.

Gottlieb’s father — Bob — was the head men’s basketball coach at Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1975-1980, compiling a 97-91 record.

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Waddle & Silvy: Scott Hanson Told Us to Lose His Number

“We didn’t call him back, so he set out what he wanted to do.”

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Aaron Rodgers took immense pride in the fact that he told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter to “lose his number” while discussing his future earlier this week on The Pat McAfee Show. ESPN 1000’s Waddle & Silvy said they’ve experienced similar treatment from guests on their radio show.

While discussing the Rodgers interview with McAfee, the pair admitted that NFL RedZone host Scott Hanson once told their producer to stop trying to book him for interviews on the program.

“I believe the presentation was ‘Do me a favor: lose my number after this interview’,” Tom Waddle said. “So he tried to do it politely. Scott Hanson did. Get out of here. That concept is foreign to me. How about ‘Hey, next time you text me, my schedule is full. I can’t do it, but thanks for thinking of me’. ‘Lose my number?’ You ain’t the President, for Christ’s sake. I’m saying that to anyone who would say that. ‘Lose my number?’ We’re all in the communication business. I just don’t know — why be rude like that to people? What does that accomplish? You know what it accomplished? We didn’t call him back, so he set out what he wanted to do.”

Co-host Mark Silverman then mentioned that the show once tried to book Hansen and NFL Red Zone host Andrew Siciliano together in the same block, with the idea of doing a trivia game to see who the supreme Red Zone host was. Siciliano agreed, but Hansen declined.

The pair also confirmed that an NFL Network personality had told them to lose their number, but couldn’t remember if it was Rich Eisen or not.

Silverman later joked that maybe Hanson was getting a new phone with a new number, and was politely sharing with the producer that he could lose the current phone number because he would share his new number in short order.

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Seth Payne: Aaron Rodgers ‘Makes Gross Inaccuracies’ When Calling Out Media

“This is where Rodgers does this thing where he, in calling out reporters for their inaccuracies, makes gross inaccuracies in his accusations.”

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Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers is always mad at the media for the inaccurate things he says they report, but according to Sports Radio 610 morning man Seth Payne, no one is more inaccurate than the quarterback himself.

Friday morning, Payne and his partner Sean Pendergast played audio of Aaron Rodgers responding to a question about a list of players he provided to the Jets demanding they sign. Rodgers called the idea that he would make demands “so stupid” and chastised ESPN reporter Dianna Russini, who was the first to report it.

“Now to be clear, Dianna Russini didn’t say demands in her tweet. She said wishlist,” Pendergast clarified.

They also played a clip of Russini responding to Rodgers on NFL Live saying that she stands by her reporting and it is her job to reach out to confirm that it is true.

“This is where Rodgers does this thing where he, in calling out reporters for their inaccuracies, makes gross inaccuracies in his accusations,” Seth Payne said.

He added that if Rodgers is being serious, he is doing some serious nitpicking. He claims that he didn’t give the Jets a list, but that he spoke glowingly about former teammates and told the Jets executives that he met with who he enjoyed playing with during his career.

Payne joked that maybe he wrote down the names in a circle pattern so that it was not a list. Pendergast added that he could have had Fat Head stickers on his wall that he pointed to instead of writing anything at all.

In Payne’s mind, this is a case of Russini catching stray frustration. Neither in her initial tweet nor in any subsequent media appearance did she use the phrase “demands”.

“What he’s actually responding to in that instance is Pat McAfee is the one that described it as a list of demands,” Seth Payne said.

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