Boomer Esiason + Traina Thoughts | The SI Media Podcast

Episode 375 features an interview with Boomer Esiason of CBS’s “NFL Today" and WFAN radio in New York.

Manny Rubio/USA TODAY Sports

With the Bengals in the Super Bowl against the Rams, Boomer Esiason talks about how the franchise went from NFL laughingstock to the AFC representative in the big game. The nine-year Cincinnati quarterback also discussed why Joe Burrow is special and the best moments in Bengals history.

Esiason also talks about that AFC title game halftime show during which he and his CBS colleagues were drowned out by a concert, whether Aaron Rodgers ever reached out to him after the fake story about Rodgers boycotting the Super Bowl, calling 19 Super Bowls on radio, doing morning drive radio, his efforts to raise money for cystic fibrosis and more.

Following the interview with Esiason, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York, joins Jimmy for their weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. Topics covered include Super Bowl prop bets, some recent must-see documentaries and much more

The following transcript is an excerpt from The SI Media Podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.

Jimmy Traina: Welcome everyone to the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast. I am your host, Jimmy Traina, thanks for listening. Big week with the Super Bowl, so we reached out and Boomer Esiason, former Bengal, kind enough to come on the pod. Obviously, you guys know Boomer from NFL Today and CBS. My fellow New Yorkers know I’m here on The Fan in New York every morning, Boomer and Geo 6:00 AM. So with the history of the Bengals and Boomer having a great run there, I thought he was a perfect guest this week to talk about the Super Bowl with the Bengals and Rams. And we also do a lot of media stuff and get into Boomer’s career calling NFL games on the radio, and he touches on what happened at the Chiefs, Bengals halftime, where the CBS crew was drowned out. And we get into sort of the philosophy of doing radio and what sports talk morning radio is like with Boomer. Then we go into Traina Thoughts with Sal Licata after the Boomer interview. And Sal and I touch on some Super Bowl prop bets and watching the Super Bowl what that’s like. And we talk about some things we’ve watched recently. I went on a binge craze this weekend and watched a bunch of shows, so we discuss all that in Traina thoughts. Before we get to the interviews with Boomer and Traina Thoughts, just a reminder, if you missed any recent episodes of The SI Media Podcast, all episodes are there in the archives for you to listen to, so check them out. Brian Curtis from The Ringer was on last week, got a ton of great feedback. Brian and I spent about 10 minutes talking about Radio Row, and I got a ton of feedback from people who really liked that conversation. So, Brian Curtis of The Ringer, he’s at Radio Row this week, and we talked about it on last week’s pod so check that out. Two weeks ago, Roman Reigns, Joe Buck, Jim Nantz were on a mega episode of the pod. Nantz was on two weeks before that. And then Richard Deitsch, Al Michaels, Tom Rinaldi, all recent guests on the SI Media Podcast so check those out in the archives. And if you could rate review that helps. I’ll read the review on the pod when you leave one. Let’s get right now to this week’s episode with Boomer Esiason on the Super Bowl and then the Traina Thoughts with Sal Licata on the SI Media Podcast.

All right, joining me now, perfect, perfect guest to have on this week with the Bengals of all teams in the Super Bowl, one of the all-time Bengals, Boomer Esiason, also WFAN Radio New York, CBS Sports, obviously you know him on NFL Today. Boomer, how’s it going?

Boomer Esiason: I’m doing great Jimmy. Thanks for having me on. So what’s up?

Jimmy Traina: We gotta talk about the Bengals and the Super Bowl. But let me just put a bow on two things that happened recently, just since I have you. The first, you talked about it on your radio show, but for my listeners nationally, who may not have heard it on The Fan, the halftime show at the AFC title game, where I wrote in my column that your facial expressions, were the best thing about it, because you were like, what the hell is going on? So, you guys knew there would be a concert going on, but you didn’t realize the speaker was going to be right behind you during that? Is that how it played out?

Boomer Esiason: That’s exactly right Jimmy. And I saw them moving the speaker in the place and I was like this is not going to be good. There’s just no way. So for those people who live in New York and live on Long Island, know that I had an All-Star football game at Hofstra. And I would ring the inside of the stadium with all these speakers. And I’d be playing music throughout the game because, you know, we weren’t getting 75,000 fans. So as part of the in-stadium experience. So I understand all of that. Uh, but when you put a speaker right behind the guys that have amplified microphones, those microphones amplify what they’re hearing so we can hear, but the problem is they amplified the speaker so we couldn’t hear. And I was trying to read lips actually. And I couldn’t hear anything that anybody was saying. And even Nate who sits next to me is screaming. I couldn’t hear a word he was saying because my microphone kept picking up the Apple B’s song. Uh, so I was just like, you gotta be kidding me. So I was thinking to myself, if I were home and I were watching this, how would I be reacting to the five idiots standing up there with all this noise behind them? And I thought that you know, my take on things in the moment at least seemed to be reasonable. And my producer said, thank you very much for saying what was on everybody’s mind.

Jimmy Traina: You know, it was great, I was watching it live, and afterwards when everyone realized no one could hear you guys, you and Nate started dancing and then they cut to commercial and I was livid. I said, just instead of them talking, to show Boomer and Nate dancing. That wasn’t good enough?

Boomer Esiason: You know, it’s live TV, man, what are you going to do? And that’s the way it is every week with us. But, you know, we‘re not normally outside in the environment. So we used to be when I first started in the NFL today, we were over at 58th and fifth avenue right across from the plaza. And that was a pain in the neck, I think really only one show does that really well. And that’s the ESPN game day because they capture the spirit of college football and all the people that are excited about having them on campus, you know. Trying to do it in an NFL setting is almost impossible.

Jimmy Traina: Yeah. Can you share with us, I’m just curious, like when it ended and you guys go to commercial, what was said? Did you turn to Nate and say what the F was going on? Or like what did you guys say to each other as soon as the mics were off?

Boomer Esiason: We got off that stage and got out of that stadium as quick as we possibly could. And then we got back to our trailer and basically, we’re talking to each other going, what? What was that? And then, you know, Drew Kaliski, our producer came in, he goes, first of all, guys, I’m really sorry about that happening. We had no real understanding or knowledge that that was going to happen. And number two, he thanked us for being exceptionally professional and handling it and you know, the guy that’s most amazing to me—and people don’t realize this. So we’re on a jib camera that’s floating in front of us. And there’s a very small prompter. It’s about the size of my iPad that I’m talking to you on right now. And it’s a distance away from us, probably about 50 feet away from us. And JB has to read the prompter in the middle of all of that madness. And plus it was extremely bright. So the prompter wasn’t all that good anyway, you could barely see it, but somehow James Brown, the ultimate professional that has probably dealt with a million different things in this industry. Uh, seamlessly went right through it and just kinda made it like we were in the studio. I don’t know how he did it. I thought he was going to get blown off his chair when it started, but somehow he did it and it was amazing.

Jimmy Traina: He’s a pro, so I’m not surprised he handled that. Let’s go to the Bengals here in the Super Bowl. You know, I’ve been trying all week to think about it, if someone would have said before the season, the Bengals are going to be in the Super Bowl, you would have been shocked, but just because Joe Burrow is so freaking good, I don’t think I am as shocked about it. I don’t know. But you were so inside the Bengals, having been there for so long when you played there and connections there. Is this completely shocking to you? Or maybe not as shocking as people think that the Bengals made it there.

Boomer Esiason: Well, you know, I’ll tell you, doing one of the Bengals Podcasts. I don’t know which one, there are about 10 of them. So early on in the season doing a pre-season type of thing, I didn’t think they were ready yet. I thought they were going to be a year away because I didn’t know how healthy Joe Burrow was going to be. Um, I kinda knew the dedication that he put towards his rehab because I went out in August and we watched each other’s tapes and kind of did a show for NFL network. And I felt like he was really competent about his knee. They weren’t going to let them play in pre-season. So I really wondered whether or not that would impact them early in the season. And could they fall behind and then never catch up. Uh, so I have to tell you, I didn’t think they were going to make it this year, but as the year unfolded and we started to see like Jamar chase, all of a sudden start catching the ball and the big plays started happening on offense. And then Trey Hendrickson, one of their free-agent signings was having an unbelievable year early on in terms of sacks and getting turnovers. I thought maybe they would have a chance and in a 17 games season, anything was possible. And then when you take a look at where Ben Roethlisberger was in his career, the fact that Lamar Jackson got hurt and Baker Mayfield was playing with a bad shoulder. I mean, all the things lined up for the Bengals really to fill the void if you will. And they did that. And the game that really said to me—that they had arrived, was a game that they won late in the season on the road at Denver. They had lost the previous two weeks to San Francisco and the chargers at home of all places. And they had to go on the road to save their season and they won a game 15 to 10 at the Broncos. And you know, that was a point in the season where the Broncos were trying to play to make it to the playoffs. They were still in the mix there. And that was a really key win for them because then they won their next two so they didn’t have to play their last game against Cleveland. So they’ve won six out of their last seven games, including the playoffs. And that’s all come together for them. So a little bit surprising, yes. But I’m not surprised at all about Joe Burrow. I knew he was going to be this good. I knew that they were going to draft him number one overall. He is an Athens, Ohio kid Jimmy. And it’s the perfect scenario for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Listen to The Sports Illustrated Media Podcast