Photo: Seth Wenig/AP
Just like when he drops back to pass, Aaron Rodgers scans the world around him and sees enemies everywhere. For the past four years, The Pat McAfee Show, a streaming sensation that recently found a home on ESPN, has provided a forum for the New York Jets quarterback to settle scores and pick other targets for offense - not least his grudge against Jimmy Kimmel.
Rodgers' three-year-old feud with Kimmel - which began when the talk show host dissed Rodgers, a stubborn vaccine skeptic, after he tested positive for Covid - reached a troubling turning point last week when Rodgers appeared on McAfee's show and suggested that the Comedian "nervous" about link to Jeffrey Epstein. The quarterback vowed to "pop a bottle of something" if Kimmel's name surfaced in the recent release of documents about the disgraced financier.
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That led to Kimmel jumping on He then hammered Rodgers on his late-night chat show in a seven-minute monologue that portrayed Rodgers as a special case of dumb jock. "Aaron had two As on his report card, and they were both in the word 'Aaron,'" Kimmel snapped.
On Tuesday, Rodgers appeared on McAfee's show and unloaded both barrels. He shrugged off Kimmel ("I think it's impressive that a guy who went to Arizona State and has 10 joke writers can read a prompter") and claimed he was misunderstood ("I don't name him [a pedophile]"). From there, things quickly accelerated.
Rodgers returned to old grievances. He resumed his rants against mask requirements, federal vaccine mandates and the "pharmaceutical industrial complex" - a great phrase for sports TV. He praised alternative treatments for Covid, questioned the safety of vaccines, vilified US pandemic response czar Anthony Fauci as "one of the biggest spreaders of disinformation" (ignoring his own efforts) and recommended to viewers a takedown book about Robert F.'s doctor. Kennedy Jr, a well-known conspiracy theorist. All the while, Rodgers humbly bragged about his thirst for reading, as if he were the first person to discover books, and railed against the narrow-minded who would rather seek medical advice from professionals than sip ayahuasca during retreats in the darkness. All the while, none of Rodgers' shots - which ranged from bizarre to dangerous - seemed to resonate with many of McAfee's viewers. "This man is fucking tiring with his BS," snorted one X user.
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Still, Rodgers kept going. He dismissed sportswriters as beneath him, derided ESPN.com as a clickbait farm and lashed out at ESPN CEO Mike Foss, who last week called Rodgers' Epstein crack at Kimmel a "stupid and factually incorrect joke."
"I don't even know who that is," Rodgers said of Foss on Tuesday. "I don't work for you, Mike!"
That ESPN would allow one of the NFL's most prominent faces to go full QAnon for the better part of a half hour - peppering the day's schedule with f-bombs that the censor in charge of the pager missed - would be a clear departure seem for a network that once severely punished employees for not always sticking to sports. But The Pat McAfee Show is unlike any other ESPN production, with relaxed dress codes and language norms. "The opinions expressed on this show do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of their peers, their boss or ESPN," the show's disclaimer reads, a new wrinkle for ESPN. "There may be some swear words because that's how people talk in the real world... PS: don't sue us."
McAfee is a former NFL punter who played alongside Peyton Manning in Indianapolis and is widely admired for his lack of filter. His deadpan sidekick, former linebacker AJ Hawk, won a Super Bowl with Rodgers in Green Bay. Neither the show's top stars nor Greece's chorus of fanboy sycophants are particularly inclined to back down much, if anything, their guests say. After Rodgers' first wind, McAfee made a great showing of shutting down the controversies and moving on to football matters, only to bring up Fauci unprompted during a discussion about the Steelers' playoff chances, prompting Rodgers to reconsider to start. None of this was new: Rodgers has repeatedly attacked Fauci on McAfee's show in the past. So it was no surprise that when Jets reporters asked him during Monday's exit interview what the team needed to avoid another sub-.500 finish next season, many fans rolled their eyes when Rodgers said, "flush the nonsense away' and eliminate 'everything in this season'. building that we do individually or collectively and that has nothing to do with actually winning."
Rodgers' performances at McAfee in particular were instrumental in establishing the show's credibility, especially during the quarterback's back-to-back MVP seasons in 2020 and 2021. He helped expand the show's reach to ESPN, which took over the program last May in about five years. -year, $85 million licensing deal in hopes of tapping into McAfee's younger, skeptical audience. When McAfee gave up his $2.5 million football salary to launch a media career at Barstool Sports in 2017, ESPN's Michael Wilbon believed the gambler was making a serious mistake. "Someone has to organize an intervention [for McAfee]," said the PTI host. "People who know this man should come to him now." Seven years later, McAfee has not only become a mainstay at the Worldwide Leader (side hustle on First Take and College GameDay when not hosting his own show), he has Wilbon's influence on the network and perhaps top dog Stephen A. Smit as well.
To wit: Last week, McAfee got away with calling Norby Williamson, one of ESPN's most powerful senior executives, a "rat" and "old hag" who was actively "trying to sabotage us" before a combined live TV and streaming audience of almost one million viewers. (Additionally, The McAfee Show has nearly 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube alone.) "No one is more committed to and invested in ESPN's success than Norby Williamson," the network said in a statement. "At the same time, we are thrilled with the multi-platform success we have seen on The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN."
Last October, McAfee admitted to paying Rodgers "over $1 million" for his appearances on his show. In return, the quarterback gets a safe spot on the air to rival the home field advantage he once enjoyed at Lambeau Field, and because he's just a guest on The McAfee Show, ESPN has no control over him. Bryan Curtis, The Ringer's media critic, summed up the train wreck this way: "No one involved in this story apparently works for anyone. So no one at ESPN can step in and say, 'Please stop.'
Tellingly, ESPN brass didn't publicly object to anything Rodgers has said - and he had aired months of baseless Covid chatter on McAfee's show - until the quarterback used their network to launch sneak attacks on Kimmel and his ABC show, even when the The networks playing here are both owned by Disney. ESPN now faces a dilemma: Let McAfee continue to provide Rodgers with a platform for his rants, or cut ties with the show and confirm to the quarterback - and much of the American perception - that shadowy forces are out to kill the "real truth tellers." to silence. .
It wasn't long ago that Rodgers was one of the league's sharper personalities, a grounded superstar who could just as easily talk business as insist on his black colleagues' right to protest between shifts as a guest host on Jeopardy ! and his public romances with Danica Patrick and Shailene Woodley. But the more he talks to McAfee, the more he reveals himself to be a selfish, thin-skinned contrarian who delights in starting fires and spreading disinformation. The disturbing truth is that many viewers will agree with Rodgers and pick up on his "research" on Covid and Fauci. At best, McAfee doesn't challenge Rodgers. Worst-case scenario, he continues to run with the quarterback's most dangerous handoff yet.
