Marissa M. Conner 
The big sports broadcast news broke on Wednesday night with the New York Post‘s Andrew Marchand reporting that Troy Aikman is set to sign with ESPN to be their Monday night football analyst.
Many may have signed up for the night or stopped checking their emails and social media when news of Aikman broke. So it was a good subject for Boomer & Gio to start WFAN’s morning show with Thursday morning.
The NFL broadcast shuffle and exorbitant salaries paid are relevant topics for Boomer Esiason, who is part of CBS The NFL today studio show and was the analyst on Monday night football for two seasons (1998 to 1999) with Al Michaels.
Did Boomer miss the cash stash that Tony Romo and Aikman are now swimming in doing FMN at the wrong time? Gregg Giannotti teased him about it to start Thursday’s show.
“It must make you sick,” Giannotti said. “It now happens twice. Your playing career, then your broadcasting career, where you ran out of money.
Esiason tried to avoid his co-host’s bait.
“It’s really not about me; it’s more about Troy Aikman,” Esiason said. “I stopped making games.”
“I know; I just like to put myself in your shoes once in a while,” Giannotti replied. “I was doing this yesterday and I was like, ‘Look, Boomer did really well. But oh my God! I just missed it, twice now!”
“Well, good for him, man, and good for Tony Romo,” Esiason said graciously. “As I told you when he got his contract, I’m always happy for the guys who get paid. I have no animosity towards any of that. I have no animosity towards the quarterbacks who get paid in the game today.
Boomer and Gio then asked ESPN who would be prepared to pay Aikman so much money when the “ManningCast” alternative is so popular and drives viewers away from the mainstream. FMN TV show. (Though it might be a stretch to pay attention to social media. The “ManningCast” averaged 1.58 million viewers, while the regular FMN broadcast attracted 13.5 million. Not to mention that Peyton and Eli play 10 games a season.)
The NFL broadcast carousel also gave Esiason the opportunity to repeat a rumor he had heard that San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch was interested in returning to television. Lynch denied Esiason’s speculation, saying he’s committed to the 49ers. (Although his use of “now” left an opening that many will point out.)
But there’s still a lot to come from Aikman’s reported jump to ESPN. Monday night football has the marquee analyst he’s been missing since Jon Gruden returned to NFL coaching. Fox is to replace Aikman on its No. 1 NFL broadcast team with Joe Buck. And who will Amazon sue for its Thursday night football airing now after losing Aikman? What if it also meant losing Al Michaels?
