He's a top-rated WFAN morning show host. He's a former NFL MVP. And now Boomer Esiason is a Radio Hall of Fame inductee.

Boomer Esiason said he never would have expected it “in my wildest dream.” But on Thursday night in Chicago, the former Jets quarterback and current WFAN morning show host will be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

Esiason, 65, joins Mike Francesa and Chris Russo as sports talk show hosts with a WFAN pedigree who made it to the radio Hall. But unlike Mike and the Mad Dog, Esiason had a first act as an athlete as an NFL quarterback for 14 seasons.

The radio Hall is not the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, for which the East Islip native was recently considered and for which he is still eligible. But it’s one of the highest honors the radio industry can bestow.

The radio Hall over the years has chosen broadcasters from all genres. Past inductees include baseball announcers Red Barber and Vin Scully, shock jocks Don Imus and Howard Stern, news anchor Edward R. Murrow, and even Abbott and Costello. Former U.S. presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan are also among the more than 400 inductees.

In August, Esiason revealed on the air that he plans to have longtime producer Al Dukes introduce him at the Hall ceremony at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago. And he did it in typically pull-no-punches style.

“Al has been with me since I took this job Day One,” Esiason said. “Eddie [Scozzare] left. Jerry [Recco] came after Al. Craig [Carton] went to jail. Me and Al have been stuck together for 19 years.”

Esiason has been the co-host of WFAN’s top-rated morning show – first with Carton and now with Gregg Giannotti – since 2007. His radio background includes calling 19 Super Bowls from 2000 to 2018.

“Sports broadcasting, whether or not it's sports talk or sports play-by-play, is a very dominant part of the radio industry,” Kraig Kitchin, co-chair of the radio Hall’s nominating committee, told Newsday in a telephone interview. “Individuals in this case like Boomer Esiason, his work product is clearly noted. His outstanding ratings in New York -- the most competitive radio market in the nation -- is clearly taken note of . . . I think the combination of his ability to entertain, his ability to be authentic, to be truthful, to share his opinions and to hold really healthy, fun, lively conversations prevails in this case.”

Esiason’s success as a talk show host is no surprise to former Newsday NFL columnist Bob Glauber.

“I consider Boomer to be one of the best players I ever covered in 37 years of covering the NFL,” Glauber told Newsday. “He was fantastic. He was so quotable. He would get in your face when he felt you were being unfair or had something to say.  The back and forth with Boomer Esiason was as good as there was with any player I ever dealt with in the NFL.

“I marvel at his staying power because, man, he doesn't sleep, and he's got to stay up on everything."

What about an eventual spot in the Pro Football Hall? Esiason’s credentials would seem to put him on the bubble. In late 2024, he was on a list of 183 nominees who were being considered by the Hall’s seniors ballot screening committee for a bust in Canton.

That process went all the way to this past February, when former 49ers running back Roger Craig was elected as part of the Class of 2026. The senior ballot was discontinued after that election, meaning Esiason will be eligible on the regular ballot going forward.

Esiason was the NFL MVP in 1988 when he led the Cincinnati Bengals to the Super Bowl. He was a four-time Pro Bowl selection who threw for 37,920 yards and had 247 touchdown passes for the Bengals, Jets – for whom he played from 1993-95 – and Cardinals.

Glauber, a Hall of Fame voter, said: “I think Boomer Esiason had a very good NFL career, and his 1988 season, when he was the MVP, was among the best by not just a quarterback but a player ever. That's a transcendent season that you can never take away from him, and that sort of defines what he was at the height of his career.

“The issue for him for Hall of Fame is that he was 13 games under .500 (80-93) as a starter. That's a pretty tough hill to climb, being 13 under, and I don't know that he was an elite quarterback for long enough. When you're talking about the Hall of Fame, the bar is so high that it's very difficult to reach that.”

How high is the bar for the radio Hall? It must be high because even though Esiason is joining such all-time figures as Barber, Scully, Mel Allen, Marty Glickman and Suzyn Waldman, there are still some notable omissions, including New York radio icons John Sterling, Marv Albert and the recently retired Howie Rose.

The radio Hall is a part of the Museum of Broadcast Communications and says its mission is to honor “those who have contributed to the development of the radio medium throughout its history in the United States.”

The inductees are culled from “several thousand” suggestions made by listeners and radio industry people, according to Kitchin. Then a 24-person nominating committee from the industry chooses 24 finalists. Six are elected by about 1,000 industry professionals via confidential ballot and two more non-broadcaster inductees are added by the committee.

All of that somehow, this time around, led to Boomer Esiason.

“I never thought in my wildest dream 19 years ago when I started here that that was going to be part of it,” Esiason said when he got the news.

Esiason is joined in this year’s class by Dennis Green, Shotgun Tim Kelly, Helen Little, Bob Pittman, Rickey Smiley, Charlie Van Dyke and Fred Winston.