If you didn’t know how Boomer Esiason feels about Mark Gastineau, well, now you do.
The co-host of WFAN’s Boomer & Gio has made his stance on one former Green Bay Packers quarterback-turned-New York Jet crystal clear. While Esiason didn’t exactly come to — the other — Brett Favre’s defense, his frustration mounted over a tense exchange that went viral.
Ahead of Friday’s 30 for 30 premiere on the New York Sack Exchange, Gastineau made headlines when he confronted Favre at a memorabilia show in 2023. The crux of the confrontation was Gastineau’s claim that Favre had essentially allowed Michael Strahan to break his regular-season sack record.
22 years after losing the NFL single-season sack record, Mark Gastineau confronted Brett Favre for ‘taking a dive’ on the record-breaking play.
Catch the latest @30for30, ‘The New York Sack Exchange,’ on ESPN and ESPN+ starting Dec. 13. pic.twitter.com/Oz5KRwVcy7
— ESPN (@espn) December 10, 2024
While Favre admitted that it may have crossed his mind to help Strahan, he stopped short of criticizing Gastineau.
That job, it seems, was left to Boomer Esiason.
“I can’t stand the guy,” Esiason said. “The guy was a dirty, cheap-shot son of a bitch, as far as I’m concerned. I know this because he was on an elevator in The Westin in Cincinnati, telling my buddies who were there to watch the game, ‘You tell your boy, Boomer, to call an ambulance because he’s going down.’ And he was trying to cheap-shot me the whole damn game. So, screw him — that’s what I’ll say.
“I knew he’d be pissed because that’s exactly what it looked like from Michael Strahan and Brett Favre. It looked exactly like that, so I understand why he’s pissed. But screw him, I don’t care.”
Boomer Esiason on Mark Gastineau: “I can’t stand the guy. He was a dirty, cheap-shot son of a bitch!”
— Funhouse (@BackAftaThis) December 11, 2024
When it was mentioned that Gastineau has since found Jesus Christ, Esiason quipped, “He hasn’t repented for his sins regarding me — a fellow human being.”
Esiason mentioned to his co-host Gregg Giannotti, a die-hard Minnesota Vikings fan, that Gastineau was like his buddy, John Randle. But Esiason did put more of the onus on former Vikings’ defensive line coach John Teerlinck, who he claimed would have his players push the envelope of the unwritten rules.
“I guess every time we talk about unwritten rules in certain sports, everybody starts freaking out,” said Esiason. “I always thought there was a brotherhood. And, yes, you’ve got to hit the guy; you’ve got to try to intimidate the guy. I’m not against any of that, as long as it’s within the rules and you’re not trying to hurt somebody. Now, I don’t know how you can say that a defensive player, when they’re delivering shot, is not trying to hurt somebody. I mean, they have to play that way — I understand.”
“He knew what he was doing,” Esiason added regarding Gastineau. “And I saw on film what he was doing a week before against the Buffalo Bills.”
Esiason has no problem with Joe Klecko or Marty Lyons, but Gastineau is a different story.
“This guy was dirty. If you ask those guys on the side, they’ll tell you that this guy was a loner,” Esiason continued. “It was all about him, not about them and the ‘Sack Exchange,’ it was all about him.”
And even then, Esiason still sympathizes with Gastineau being pissed at Favre.
“I remember covering that and how Brett Favre annoyed his own offensive linemen by allowing that to happen,” he said. “If I did that and Anthony Muñoz or Max Montoya or Joe Walter or Bruce Kozerski or Dave Rimington — any of those guys out there — and I gave up a sack? Ugh, they’d be so pissed off; it wouldn’t even be funny. They’d be in my grill.”
You can check out Gastineau in Favre’s grill in the new documentary, which debuts Friday at 8 p.m. (ET) on ESPN/ESPN+.
