Aaron Rodgers Tuesdays on The Pat McAfee Show are over for the NFL season with the New York Jets failing to advance to the postseason, and Pat McAfee couldn’t be more relieved.
McAfee opened his show on Wednesday with his perspective on the drama surrounding Rodgers’ appearances and why he is “pumped” they are ending for now.
“Aaron Rodgers Tuesday season four is done,” McAfee confirmed. “There will be a lot of people who are happy with that, myself included. The way it ended, it got real loud.”
Pat McAfee opens his show saying he is 'pumped' that drama around Aaron Rodgers interviews is now over for the season pic.twitter.com/prWNAhvsMU
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 10, 2024
McAfee laid out how he attempts to keep himself and his crew insulated from the nonsense of show business and why the Rodgers interviews made it harder to do so. Whether it was Jimmy Kimmel or ESPN suits, PMS was squarely in the middle of media drama for most of the past two weeks.
“Over the last week, we have certainly given them all a lot of stuff to get mad about,” McAfee said. “We have messed up in that particular aspect … we live in a country that has freedom of speech, but also you’re going to have to live with the consequences of that freedom of speech.”
McAfee accepted the criticism that came toward him and PMS.
“We have 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,” McAfee added. “We would love to get back to the point where we just move on and continue to silence all the haters.”
McAfee committed to going back to covering sports and not getting sidetracked by the conspiracies or beefing that Rodgers brought to the show.
And he expressed appreciation to put it behind himself and the show, for the time being.
“Aaron Rodgers is a Hall of Famer, he is a four-time MVP, he is a massive part of the NFL story whenever you go back and tell it,” McAfee explained. “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.”
McAfee ended by emphasizing the Rodgers rants are not what he wants PMS “to be known for.”
Time will tell what this means for the future of Rodgers on the show. That decision, by all accounts, is in McAfee’s hands.
But for a show that aims to be “comedic informative” and celebrate sports for its audience every day, the Rodgers interviews have derailed the show in a big way. Besides, while Rodgers joining PMS certainly helped it grow, the program is a behemoth these days.
It boasts 2.4 million YouTube subscribers and 1.3 million followers on TikTok, which allows McAfee to pay his team through his personal business. Even on days when Rodgers is not on, the show frequently has more than 50,000 live viewers, a number that rivals many of the biggest live-streamers and YouTubers in any industry.
If Rodgers does return for weekly spots, it wouldn’t be until late summer when next NFL season ramps up.
