Credit: The Pat McAfee Show
By Drew Lerner on

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Pat McAfee began his daily show on Wednesday trying to set the record straight.

The ESPN star took issue with how the media covered and reacted to one interaction he had with Monday Night Countdown colleague Jason Kelce. It all started Monday, when McAfee gave Kelce a hard time during halftime of the Philadelphia Eagles-Chicago Bears game after Kelce, a six-time All-Pro center for the Eagles, continually referred to his former team as “we” when analyzing their performance.

As our Matt Yoder wrote of Monday’s exchange shortly after it happened, “If anyone has earned the right to use ‘we’ when talking about a team on a broadcast, it’s Jason Kelce and the Philadelphia Eagles.”

That was the same sentiment that former ESPN NFL analyst (and Monday Night Countdown staple) Ryan Clark gave on social media when reacting to Kelce’s use of “we” on Tuesday.

“I’m trying to mind my own, but hell yea it’s ‘We’ Future Hall of Famer!! You’re a legend @JasonKelce,” Clark wrote on X. “Blood, sweat, tears, & glory in Philly. No one can take that away. You can still do your job the right way! Bump anyone saying differently.”

Now, it appears as if McAfee could be interpreting Clark’s reaction as a direct shot at him. Just over a minute into his show on Wednesday, McAfee appeared to reference Clark’s post in a rant about people misinterpreting his interaction with Kelce.

“Now, I usually mind my own, but if you thought I was being serious whenever I pointed out Jason Kelce was saying ‘we’ about the Philadelphia Eagles, knowing who Jason Kelce is, with the Philadelphia Eagles at the Monday Night Football halftime, you have no brain, and I think you should just realize that,” McAfee said, seemingly repeating Clark’s “mind my own” to indicate he was directing his remarks towards the former ESPN analyst. “I don’t love just the lying and the stuff that happens on my name these days, but just saying stuff to continue to add gas to a flame that isn’t real when you’re in this place and carry as much weight as you definitely do, I think it’s a little bit of a piling on, and I hope you all rot. All of you,” McAfee concluded.

It’s unclear if McAfee was, in fact, targeting Clark with his comments, but his use of “mind my own” would be quite coincidental if he wasn’t referring to Clark.

The whole spiel was a bit odd, especially since no one seemed to misinterpret McAfee’s joking tone with Kelce on Monday. He simply brought up something that made for an interesting discussion about how acceptable it is for someone in Kelce’s position to use “we” to refer to his former team, and people online used it as a jumping-off point. It’s not even clear whether Clark’s “mind my own” phrasing was directed at McAfee, as it could just as easily refer to Kelce, his former colleague.

McAfee’s remarks came just after he took aim at one of his longtime targets, The Athletic’s sports media reporter Andrew Marchand, who on Wednesday morning broke the news that Prime Video NFL analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who is McAfee’s colleague on College GameDay and a frequent guest on his daily show, was re-signing with the streamer to continue calling Thursday Night Football. McAfee called Marchand a “rat,” the same pejorative he first used after Marchand reported unfavorable viewership data about McAfee’s show shortly after it began airing on ESPN, and has used to refer to him several times since.

It all made for a bizarre start to Wednesday’s episode of TPMS.

About Drew Lerner

Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.

View all posts by Drew Lerner