One day after Pat McAfee announced that Aaron Rodgers would not return on his sports talk show for the rest of the season, the football star made a surprise appearance to discuss NFL developments including Nick Saban’s retirement and Bill Belichick’s departure from the New England Patriots.
McAfee on Thursday suggested he received backlash for booting the NFL star off of his show. “That was wild, we were getting absolutely killed,” he said. “They were like, ‘You turned your back on Aaron Rodgers!’ Do you know how many things I’ve been through with Aaron Rodgers in our short relationship? I was not pumped to be in the middle of any of that.”
Before Rodgers returned, McAfee wrote in a lengthy post on X Wednesday night, “I never said he’ll never be on the show again. I hope he chooses to still chat with us.”
Rodgers ignited a media firestorm when, on a Jan. 2 episode of ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show,” he suggested that Jimmy Kimmel was among those named in the now-unsealed Jeffrey Epstein documents. “There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, really hoping that doesn’t come out,” Rodgers said. Kimmel responded to Rodgers’ false claim on X/Twitter, writing, “Your reckless words put my family in danger. Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.” He further piled on Rodgers during his late-night TV show, calling him a “hamster-brained man” who “thinks he knows what the government is up to because he’s a quarterback doing research on YouTube and listening to podcasts.”
The following week, Rodgers said on McAfee’s show, “I’m glad Jimmy is not on the list. I really am. I don’t think he’s the P-word.” A day after that, McAfee announced on-air that Rodgers, who typically guests on the show on Tuesdays, would not return this season.
“So ‘Aaron Rodgers Tuesday’ Season 4, is done,” McAfee said at the beginning of Wednesday’s episode. “There could be a lot of people that are happy with that. Myself included, to be honest with you. The way it ended, it got real loud. I’m happy that he’s not gonna be in my mentions going forward, which is great news.”
McAfee continued, “We are very lucky to get the chance to chat with him and learn from him. Some of his thoughts and opinions, though, do piss off a lot of people. I’m pumped that that is no longer going to be every single Wednesday of my life, which it has been for the last few weeks.”
On Thursday, McAfee suggested he didn’t like working in so many observers’ cross-hairs. “I certainly don’t love that I’ve found myself in political wars and public beefs because of something that a guest has said on our show or something that my dumbass has said.”
In that spirit, Rodgers, who has been criticized in the past for peddling conspiracy theories and for his stance on the COVID vaccine, kept it apolitical on Thursday’s episode of “The Pat McAfee Show” and stuck to football talk.
