During the fourth quarter of Sunday’s Cincinnati Bengals and New York Jets broadcast, CBS experienced technical difficulties which inhibited Ian Eagle and Charles Davis from being heard on the broadcast. During the glitch, CBS had the cast of The NFL Today — which features WFAN morning co-host Boomer Esiason — announce the game, and he detailed the experience Monday morning.
“It was the Boomer Bowl between the Jets and the Bengals so it was fitting that you were sitting there doing color analysis of this game for a good 10 minutes,” co-host Gregg Giannotti said.
“We all were which is interesting because I said we finally got our alternate broadcast in that we want,” Esiason joked. “We’re not even sure who’s on the field. We don’t have a flip card in front of us. We don’t know if there’s any major injuries or if there’s anybody missing. You can tell who Garrett Wilson is, who Elijah Moore is, who Joe Flacco is. You can tell Hendrickson is, but you don’t have the flip card there. Plus, we don’t have a closeup. It’s the all-high 22. You’re just trying to give the fans a little bit of perspective because at this point in time of the game. It was interesting with five guys.”
He then added that they were watching to see how Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow handled clock management, because former coach Bill Cowher’s pregame emphasis was about clock management. But Giannotti noticed Cowher and Esiason had another on-set disagreement.
“This is the second time in three weeks that you guys have gone at it on national television,” Giannotti quipped. “First was week one between the Steelers and the Bengals. Then yesterday, you guys were going at it about the Kansas City Chiefs. You were listing all the miscues the Chiefs had in their loss to the Colts and coach Cowher didn’t like that and he was barking back at you and you were barking back and him. This is a relationship that is deteriorating.”
“No, it is not deteriorating,” Esisason said. “He was barking at me because — I don’t know — it always seems like I’m the one who has to do the replays of the mistakes so our producer is in my ear. Indianapolis and Kansas City are two of the markets that are actually doing our postgame show so of course we want to highlight the games in the cities where people are watching us.
“As we are talking about that, I get in my ear ‘I have the Kansas City special teams miscues. You ready?’. I guess. So coach gets done making his point, and so I’m like here are the Kansas City miscues and this is why they end up losing the game. They miss two field goals, they ran a fake punt that didn’t work and something else happened. And then we come back from that and there’s coach steaming. ‘I don’t want to micro-analyze things’. I don’t want to micro-analyze anything! I’m just doing what Drew (the producer) is telling me to do!”
After Giannotti impersonated Cowher’s disgust for the segment, Esiason concluded “That’s the best part about live TV. You get reactions and you want reactions!”
