CBS Sports announced earlier in the week that former NFL quarterback Matt Ryan will join The NFL Today, starting with the upcoming NFL season. As a result, it decided not to renew the contracts of longtime analysts and former NFL quarterbacks Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms, thus ending their tenures with the network. While Simms is not sure about his next move in media, Esiason subsequently signed a contract extension to remain in morning drive on Audacy-owned WFAN.
Esiason previously stated that he perceived the Super Bowl broadcast as his “swan song” with CBS Sports when discussing his move. During a recent appearance on Meadowlark Media’s God Bless Football, he elaborated on the situation further and outlined his rationale, confirming that he did not feel blindsided by the decision. Part of the timing came with the retirement of CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus, who had hired Esiason to join the network ahead of the 2000 season. In the end, he felt it was “just a natural thing” to move on but did not want to discuss it at the Super Bowl because he felt it was not appropriate.
“I was ready,” Esiason said. “Twenty-two years – I have not had a weekend in 40 years or back-to-back weekends, I should say, in the fall. For me, it’s been a great run, and on top of all of that, I was able to extend my radio program in the morning with WFAN and Audacy, and the CBS Sports Network simulcast picked us up for another two years. So, with all of that happening, I was more than happy to step aside, and I had my time there.
“I loved my time there – I have no ill will towards anybody,” Esiason said. “As a matter of fact, I texted the guy that handles all the lunch for everybody and I said, ‘You may get a text from me in the middle of the year when I come back to visit for a day.’”
In the playoff rounds leading up to Super Bowl LVIII, CBS Sports averaged 45.6 million viewers, which is up 12% year-over-year and represents the best figure since resuming NFL broadcasts. Super Bowl LVIII broke records by averaging 123.7 million viewers across multiple platforms, and a subsequent custom survey from Nielsen Media Research revealed that the championship contest reached an estimated 210 million viewers, approximately two-thirds of all Americans. The network will look to capitalize off of that success next season with the new studio show cast of host James Brown with analysts Bill Cowher, Nate Burleson, J.J. Watt and Matt Ryan.
“I called Matt Ryan and he said, ‘Can I call you in the summer? I really want to talk to you about what it means to be on the show and everything,’” Esiason recalled, “and I said, ‘Matt, there’s only really one thing. You’re eloquent enough, you’re loquacious enough, you look good, you dress great, you’re really knowledgeable, you are contemporary – a little bit more contemporary than I am of course – and you want to know something, the most important thing about sitting in that chair is that the people that are watching you on a Sunday need to know that you love to be there.’”
The conversation moved to discuss Jon “Stugotz” Weiner and his candidacy to lead WFAN and Infinity Sports Network before the hiring of Ryan Hurley. Esiason was initially intrigued by Weiner joining the station, thinking that he would bring gravitas to the outlet in a way similar to Spike Eskin.
“And then I started to think, ‘Wait a minute, he likes being on the air, and maybe he is buying into this nonsense that Craig Carton had said right before he left to go to FS1, and that is, ‘Boomer’s going to retire in two years,’’ so I figured you were going to be a trojan horse once you got in there,” Esiason said. “So, it didn’t work out for sure, but maybe next time around it will, but I think Ryan Hurley for us [being] at WFAN is going to be great.”
