WFAN host Boomer Esiason has been critical of ESPN’s ManningCast, saying it’s “awkward” and “distracting.” Now that he’s been a guest on the Monday Night Football alternative broadcast, he…pretty much feels the same way.
When Esiason admitted last week on his show that he had been asked to join Peyton and Eli on the ManningCast, co-host Gregg Giannotti reminded the former NFL quarterback that he’s been critical of it and the way it works.
“You know what’s funny about this,” Giannotti said. “You’ve been talking about how you never watch the ManningCast, it’s not for you and all of this stuff and you’ve said that publicly on this show and here you are, you’re gonna be a guest on there.”
The WFAN host previously said that he only watches ManningCast if the Monday Night Football game is a blowout and that he finds their interactions with guests to be “awkward,” which, to be fair, is a common issue.
Esiason added himself to the list of guests contending with Zoom issues and audio lags on Monday when he appeared during the Cleveland Browns’ 32-13 drubbing of the Cincinnati Bengals. He went through the usual routine of reliving something cringy from his NFL career, this time in the form of an underwear commercial. He also playfully sparred with Eli over the criticism Boomer lobbed in his direction when Manning was the New York Giants quarterback.
"He knows the game, he loves the game, and his teammates really do respect him… that's really the thing that separates him for what he has really become." – @7BOOMERESIASON on @JoeyB pic.twitter.com/heh1VIt868
— Omaha Productions (@OmahaProd) November 1, 2022
On Tuesday morning’s Boomer & Gio., Esiason discussed his ManningCast experience, admitting that it was fun but reaffirming that he doesn’t feel it’s ultimately conducive to how he likes to watch football on TV.
“It was a lot of fun last night,” Esiason said. “Now I know why it can tend to be a little choppy because there’s about a half a second delay between the conversation you’re having with both Eli and Peyton, and then on top of it, you’re trying to do a game while you’re trying to answer questions and you’ve got a monitor about the size of an iPad.
“On half that monitor, you see the three-box of the three people apart of the ManningCast, and on the other half of the monitor, you see the football game. So you could barely see it,” he continued. “Meanwhile, Peyton and Eli are totally hooked up. Peyton out in Denver, Eli here in New Jersey. They have the big monitors and everything. They’re trying to do a game while talking to you. It was a lot of fun, I gotta say. It is distracting, I’ll stay with that. I didn’t barely see any of the game.”
That aside, Esiason said he did enjoy the experience and he even earned high praise from the Manning brother’s “bosses.”
