Austin Rivers during an appearance on 'The Pat McAfee Show.' Screen grab: ‘The Pat McAfee Show’
By Ben Axelrod on

With his playing career in the rearview, Austin Rivers is still finding his footing as a member of the media.

And on Tuesday, the former NBA guard found himself at the center of a social media firestorm after he suggested that 30 NBA players could immediately play in the NFL during a spirited debate with Pat McAfee.

“I could take 30 players right now in the NBA and throw them in the NFL,” Rivers said during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday. “You cannot take 30 NFL players and put them in the NBA.”

Rivers immediately received pushback from McAfee, a former All-Pro punter and football enthusiast. The two proceeded to go back and forth over whether football or basketball players are the superior athletes, with McAfee noting that only five basketball players have to play at a time, with River rebutting “that’s because you guys get a break every play. All you’ve got to do is catch the ball and run north or south. It ain’t complex.”

“Our sport’s better because we would just create a position for one of you 5.2-running 6-foot-10 guys and just put them — can’t get hit much, fragile,” McAfee replied. “A little thin, very tall. We would just create a position because we have big brains in our sport. That’s what we would do.”

McAfee and Rivers continued to go back and forth, with the former punter conceding that maybe five NBA players could play in the NFL, but certainly not 30. While the two stood firm in defending their respective sports, the conversation was good natured — although the same can’t be said for the response it received from other former football players.

Once Rivers’ bold stance got aggregated, it unsurprisingly drew the ire of multiple ex-NFL players, including Chris Long and Emmanuel Acho, who both posted videos disputing Rivers’ claim. The most notable response, however, came from JJ Watt — another McAfee regular — who quote-tweeted a post with his own jab at the Duke product.

“You don’t got a job in either right now, go head and try it…” Watt wrote.

Rather than letting the diss slide, Rivers opted to respond, noting that his 11-year NBA career was just about as long as Watt’s 12-year NFL career. He also clarified that his point wasn’t intended to be disrespectful toward football players, rather, was simply stating “how athletically gifted SOME NBA players are.”

Then, something crazy happened — Watt apologized. In a reply to Rivers’ post, the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year admitted that he was just replying to the headline — something he said hates when people do to him — and wasn’t aware of the full context of the conversation.

While “taken out of context” is often a convenient excuse for someone to backtrack, that appears to be what actually happened to Rivers here.

After all, the entire ordeal began with McAfee taking a jab at basketball players for being soft during a conversation about Pat Riley’s comments regarding Jimmy Butler. That prompted Rivers to respond in kind, with the two enthusiastically defending the honor of their respective sports.

But once the aggregator social media accounts got a hold of Rivers’ comment, all anyone seemed to see was his claim that 30 NBA players could play in the NFL, without any of the context that he and McAfee were clearly trying to upstage each other. It’s a credit to Watt that he recognized the all-too-common social media trap he had fallen into and was willing to apologize for his terse response.

[NBA on ESPN]

About Ben Axelrod

Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.

View all posts by Ben Axelrod