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Aaron Rodgers will not appear on 'The Pat McAfee Show' again this NFL season

McAfee did not say if Rodgers would be back during the offseason

sean leahy
Contributing writer
·4 min read
1.3k

Pat McAfee announced Wednesday that New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers will not be appearing on his show for the remainder of the NFL season.

Will Rodgers return during the offseason or for the 2024 season? McAfee did not say anything to that end, but it should be noted Rodgers has appeared during the playoffs in the past.

"The way it ended, it got real loud. Real loud," McAfee said. "I'm happy that he's not going to be in my [X] mentions going forward, which is great news. ... Over the last week we have certainly given [critics] a lot of stuff to get mad about and become loud about. We have messed up in that particular aspect, and by 'we' I mean we're a conversation show, people are having conversations.

"We live in a country that has freedom of speech, but you're also going to have to deal with the consequences of your freedom of speech. So what I'm saying is we've given a lot of people who have been waiting for us to fail a lot of ammo and things to attack us for over the last week, and we would love to get back to the point where we just move on and continue to silence all the haters over here who can't negotiate as good as I can; all the people over here who can't create a show as good as us; and all the people up here who will just always be here and they're going to hustle and do their thing, which I respect. But we need to do that, and that is our focus, that is our goal.

"And Aaron Rodgers is a Hall of Famer. He's a four-time MVP. He's a massive piece of the NFL story. Whenever you go back and tell it, he will be a huge part of it. We are very lucky to get a chance to chat with him and learn from him. Some of his thoughts and opinions, though, do piss off a lot of people, and 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."

Rodgers has been a weekly guest on "The Pat McAfee Show," but his appearances this NFL season have brought controversy after controversy. He continually teased a return this season from an injured Achilles until reality set in. His opinions on Dr. Anthony Fauci and the COVID-19 vaccine were a regular topic. But the most recent news the quarterback made on the show was saying that late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel did not want the "Epstein list," an unsealing of court documents in a case involving Jeffrey Epstein purported to include a list of alleged clients and co-conspirators, to be released.

While Kimmel's show airs on ABC and McAfee's on ESPN, both are a part of the Disney family.

Kimmel was upset and threatened to take Rodgers to court for his comments. That led to ESPN senior vice president of digital and studio production Mike Foss releasing a statement saying “Pat announced today that he’s planning on Aaron joining the show Tuesday. Aaron made a dumb and factually inaccurate joke about Jimmy Kimmel. The show will continue to evolve. It wouldn’t surprise me if Aaron’s role evolves with it.”

Rodgers' spent his final appearance on Tuesday complaining about the "mainstream media" and went after Foss as well.

While Rodgers drew his weekly few days of attention, McAfee found himself in his own controversy when he claimed last week there was an effort inside ESPN to "sabotage" his show while calling out ESPN executive Norby Williamson. McAfee was upset at a New York Post column that touched on the ratings his show was drawing compared to his contract and wondered how information like that would get leaked and by whom.

Now that Rodgers is done, McAfee is ready to get back to talking about sports and only sports.

"On Friday, obviously I threw us into the fire as well. Forever stand by that. Everything else, though, just can't do that and not what we want to be known for, and I'm also pumped that I don't have to do these types of talks anymore."