As the NFL prepares to kick off the 2024–25 season, Aaron Rodgers will likely be making the rounds on radio shows. After all, he has been a regular on The Pat McAfee Show in recent years, sometimes to significant controversy. But one place we can probably not expect the 40-year-old New York Jets quarterback to turn up is on WFAN’s morning sports talk show Boomer and Gio, after a disastrous appearance last year.
On Wednesday's show, Gregg "Gio" Giannotti, who has hosted the show alongside Boomer Esiason for the past seven years, called the August 2023 Rodgers interview the "the most awkward, horrible" moment in the show's history. Giannotti recalled the incident while speaking with Jon "Stugotz" Weiner, who hosts The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on ESPN Radio and was filling in for Esiason for the week.
"Honestly, I'd rather you interview Aaron Rodgers than us, after what happened last year," Giannotti said. "And I’m dead serious about that. I don’t need another crack at that. I’m fine. Honestly, you can have that, I don’t need to interview him again. I don't."
Stugotz then pointed out that you don't have Rodgers on your show if you want to talk about football, as he's much more interested in discussing aliens and conspiracy theories.
When asked whether he led with football, Giannotti said: "No, that's the thing ... I led with, ‘Does he buy his own furniture?’ And he was not happy. And then Boomer went to a dishwashing story, he was even angrier."
At the time, Rodgers had just plunked down $9.5 million for a home in New Jersey, as he was preparing for his first season with the Jets. (Of course, we all know how that panned out.) But Rodgers, who had gotten stuck in traffic on his way to the studio, clearly did not want to discuss furniture or washing dishes.
"That had a lot to do with his day," Giannotti continued. "But I'm just assuming he's gonna have that type of day again, it's New Jersey, you know? These things happen." They then briefly played a clip of the pair attempting to talk to Rodgers about traffic, and he indeed did not seem amused.
"Please, for the love of god, just post it somewhere so people can listen to it, I cannot listen back to that. I really cannot," the co-host said, to which it was pointed out that the full 18-minute interview is on YouTube.
"So yeah, if you'd like to listen to the most horrible, awkward 18 minutes of the Boomer & Gio show," Giannotti quipped. "I don’t think he ever looked at us. Not one time."
"It was a combination of everything," he later recalled. "It was him being upset, us freaking out when he wasn’t playing along. It's just—the whole thing was just turds in a blender."
"I can't. It's like watching a video of you crapping your pants, I'm not gonna go back and watch that again," he noted, admitting that one time he actually threw up in a trash can in the studio after coming in to work with a stomach bug.
"I'd rather watch that then listen back—I swear to god—I'd rather watch me puking in a garbage pail with the norovirus than go back and listen to that Aaron Rodgers interview again," Giannotti added.
