Even Pat McAfee thinks Adam Schefter went too far in his coverage of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs this weekend.
After multiple iffy calls benefitting Mahomes and the Chiefs during their AFC divisional round win over Houston, Schefter scored a scoop on the league’s reaction. The senior NFL insider reported that the NFL will address the controversy by expanding replay assist into plays involving quarterback slides — just like the tricks Mahomes pulled against Houston.
However, Schefter failed to mention that the NFL backed up the calls in question after the Chiefs’ victory over the Texans. In an effort to address the perception of bias toward Kansas City after ESPN game analyst Troy Aikman drew attention to Mahomes’ shenanigans, the NFL sent longtime referee Walt Anderson onto NFL Network’s pregame show to explain each call.
Basically, Schefter gave credence to the backlash toward Kansas City without mentioning that it was ultimately without merit.
The usual suspects — Chiefs fans and former Chiefs — came out to defend their guy, but it was a mostly quiet chorus until McAfee joined it on Monday. During Schefter’s weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, the host questioned Schefter’s intentions, wondering aloud whether Schefter was suppressing facts or working an angle.
“Good luck in those Twitter streets as you are being attacked viciously,” McAfee said to Schefter.
After Schefter reiterated that he was reporting facts and had no intentions or agenda, McAfee wouldn’t take it.
“Yeah, but which facts do you present and which facts do you withhold?” McAfee questioned. “That’s journalism, baby.”
As Schefter’s lips pursed out of a smile and his frustration began to show, McAfee ended the segment — but not his rant.
“I always appreciate that, ‘We’re just presenting facts,'” McAfee said. “Yeah, but which ones, though? Which ones are you withholding? Because it seems like you’re potentially building a narrative with the facts that you’re choosing. What about the ones that maybe combat [what you’re saying]? Those get suppressed. ‘We’re telling the truth.’ Which truth, though? What’s the angle? Hashtag journalism, hashtag journalistic standards, and then we get questioned about it.”
In this comment, McAfee appeared to draw a line between Schefter’s reporting on Mahomes’ clever running style to a controversy last year in which McAfee fought with reporters at ESPN Media Day (including an Awful Announcing contributor) over his own “journalistic standards” in interviews with figures like Aaron Rodgers.
Later in the show, McAfee brought up a follow-up post on X from Schefter highlighting the disparity in unnecessary roughness and roughing the passer penalties between Kansas City and its opponents. Cohost and former NFL defensive back Darius Butler suggested that Schefter must have known what he was doing sharing the statistics after the fan response to his original report, leading McAfee and the crew to once again tease Schefter for insisting he has no “agenda.”
By excluding the key detail that the NFL upheld all the calls protecting Mahomes in the divisional round, Schefter opened himself up to criticism. However, it appears that the league also changed its tune around replay review of QB slides in large part because of Aikman’s criticism and ensuing uproar over Mahomes gaming the system. That cause and effect would seemingly explain why Schefter linked the Chiefs to the rule change, even if he could have explained that link better.
Once upon a time, so-called “ESPN on ESPN crime” like this would have been a problem in Bristol. But Pat McAfee (whose show is not an ESPN property) and others have changed that culture, leading to moments like these in which Schefter simply has to eat it.
