He’s pissed off
Mad Dog: ‘Urinating’ on N.Y. disqualifies Scott to follow Mike on WFAN team
Chris Russo said he should keep his mouth shut, but the Mad Dog couldn’t help spending another day ragging on Bart Scott, one of the three new hosts who will replace Mike Francesa on WFAN’s afternoon show.
“I gotta be honest, I’m actually a little insulted,” Russo, Francesa’s longtime WFAN co-host, said Wednesday on his SiriusXM show.
The station officially announced Wednesday that the trio of Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Scott would team to try to fill Francesa’s big shoes after his final day, Dec. 15.
Russo had good things to say about Carlin — his former producer on “Mike and the Mad Dog” — and Sports Illustrated’s Gray, but doubled down on his feelings about Scott, the former Jet who currently is an analyst at ESPN New York.
“I am flabbergasted,” Russo said. “This is a station I trusted for three decades and a piece of real estate from 1 to 6:30 [p.m.] from 1989 to 2017 and the guy that you found to replace him is a linebacker from the Baltimore Ravens who told us four years ago, urinated on us. And this is the guy who’s my host? Oh my God. Come on guys, you gotta come up with something better than that.”
Russo, who said Scott wouldn’t know “Joe DiMaggio from Willie Mays or Andy Bathgate from Brian Leetch or Willis Reed from Ray Williams,” took issue with Scott not being a New Yorker and with his history with the media.
“We’re gonna bring a guy in here who was born in Detroit, who played his best football with the Ravens, played a year or two with Rex Ryan, urinated on the New York media when he was here, led a boycott about talking to the players — literally — and was fired from CBS, the NFL Today, fired!” an exasperated Russo said. “Nate Burleson took over for him and this is the guy that you bring in to connect with the New York audience? You must be kidding me.” Russo said he got a million texts that he had to say something. He delivered that and more for the second day in a row on his show.