One All-Pro quarterback-turned-CBS Sports analyst is predicting doom for another at the Paramount Skydance network.
‘If I had to guess, purely speculation given what’s going on right now, I would think it’s over,’ Boomer Esiason said on his WFAN sports radio show on Thursday.
Esiason was referring to Tony Romo, the ex-Dallas Cowboys quarterback who has been placed on leave as CBS Sports’ top NFL color commentator following his July 23 OWI arrest in Wisconsin.
‘He may end up going somewhere else and getting things straightened out,’ Esiason added.
A former Cincinnati Bengals great and 1988 NFL MVP, Esiason recently completed his own 22-year stint as a CBS Sports in-studio analyst but primarily sticks to radio in the New York area these days.
It was during Esiason’s time at CBS Sports that the network hired Romo to replace another quarterback, Phil Simms, as its lead anchor. At the time, Esiason remembered, Simms was able to move into the CBS studio because there was a vacancy with the departure of Tony Gonzalez.
Romo has been on leave at CBS since his OWI arrest month in his native WisconsinÂ
Boomer Esiason predicted Romo’s time at CBS has come to an end following his arrestÂ
Romo, Esiason pointed out, has no such luck now as he’s being sidelined in favor of former Houston Texans star defensive end, JJ Watt.
But Romo does have a key supporter in his former boss, powerful Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
‘Been talking to him,’ Jones told Fox 4 Dallas-Fort Worth’s Mike Doocy from Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, California last week. ‘I love him. I love what he’s about. I love his love of sport. He’s a very, very unique talent.
‘The real question is, and I don’t even have to think what the answer is: ‘Do you think Tony Romo knows how to get up when he gets knocked down?’
‘He’s had a life of that,’ Jones continued. ‘And absolutely, that’s one of his greatest attributes is that he can handle adversity. This is something that he will work through.’
Romo has remained one of Jones’ all-time favorite Cowboys after years under center in Dallas
Romo was an unlikely NFL star after going undrafted out of Eastern Illinois in 2003. A high school golf and tennis star, Romo was often overlooked on the gridiron until he came on for an injured Drew Bledsoe in Dallas in 2006.
He’d earn the first of four trips to the Pro Bowl after that season, and since his 2016 retirement, has become one of the highest-profile names in sports media.
‘He is a unique talent,’ Jones said. ‘His vision was just mesmerizing when he was a player. But he sees things and can articulate it so instantly.
‘He’d walk out under center at a practice and the defense would have 12 people out there and it would take him about a second to say: ‘Coach, we’ve got 12 guys out here, get one of them off on the defense.’
‘It’s made him a great, great portrayer of football games,’ Jones added. ‘So obviously I’m a big fan of his, big fan of his family. Let me tell you right now, he’s as real as he sounds.’
Romo, who famously dated Jessica Simpson from 2007 to 2009, is married to Candice Crawford Romo, a former broadcast journalist and past Miss Missouri. They have three children.
His arrest on July 23 came after he had participated in a golf tournament in Milwaukee, and he was driving home when he was pulled over by cops.
When asked by officers, Romo insisted he had not consumed any alcohol that day prior to his arrest – but citations released by the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office revealed that an open container of alcohol was found on the passenger side of his Jeep.
Romo’s OWI charge carries a $1,066 fine on top of the $235 penalty he received for his moving violation, and he is due back in court on September 21 – at the end of Week 2 of the 2026 NFL season.
