Boomer Esiason was able to work alongside Craig Carton for a decade, but he drew the line at Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo.
WFAN pitched Esiason on doing morning radio after Don Imus was fired in 2007. At the time, WFAN considered Geraldo Rivera, Lou Dobbs, Jim Cramer, Joe Scarborough, Monica Crowley and even Jon Stewart as Imus’ successors, but when they ultimately settled on Esiason, they still needed to find the former NFL MVP a co-host.
This week, Esiason was The Main Event on Andrew Marchand’s sports media podcast where he recalled doing a test show with Russo before WFAN landed on Carton as his partner. And while Russo is a Radio Hall-of-Famer, to say he wasn’t a match for Esiason would be an understatement.
“I did one with Chris Russo,” Esiason told Marchand. “I wanted to shoot myself after we were done. I said, I can’t do four hours with this lunatic. There is no way.”
Credit Mike Francesa for lasting 19 years with Russo, where Esiason could barely last four hours. Stephen A. Smith does it for just three hours a week and even that’s enough! Part of the reason Boomer Esiason was even doing a test show with Chris Russo, however, is because WFAN was willing to entertain breaking up Mike and the Mad Dog.
In the aftermath of Imus getting fired, there were several weeks where Francesa and Russo pulled double duty, filling the morning void on WFAN, while still co-hosting their afternoon show together. At the time, Russo was very interested in moving to morning drive permanently. Although in retrospect, he’s admitted it wouldn’t have been a good fit because he would have done a straight sports show, a far departure from what Imus was.
Russo ultimately stayed in afternoons with Francesa for one more year before leaving WFAN altogether for SiriusXM. And despite some skepticism about whether he would be long for local morning radio, Boomer Esiason is now regarded as one of the most important hosts in WFAN history, working two highly successful morning shows alongside Craig Carton and Gregg Giannotti.
