You might not enjoy the fallout from every Aaron Rodgers appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, but it’s hard to claim their partnership was anything but a brilliant programming decision.
Mike Lupica made his weekly appearance on The Michael Kay Show Wednesday afternoon. And during the segment, Kay asked Lupica whether he was interested in watching Netflix’s upcoming three-part docuseries on Rodgers that debuts Dec. 17.
Michael Kay asks Mike Lupica if he’s going to watch Netflix’s Aaron Rodgers documentary ‘Enema’ pic.twitter.com/h3MXpyLfog
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 5, 2024
“Here’s the thing about him, here’s what we really found out: he turned out not to be the most interesting man in the world. Okay? People were hanging on his every word for what, a year?” Lupica said. “He feels like he’s been around forever. It was 15 months ago that he ran out with the flag on September 11th before he got hurt. It was only 15 months ago. It feels like 15 years!
“And we’ve been listening to him expound on everything and football and the whole thing every week with Pat McAfee. Which, by the way, was brilliant on McAfee’s part to make him a regular. I’m not dismissing that. I mean, brilliant. Just in the terms of audience and attention and everything.”
We’re in season five of Aaron Rodgers Tuesday on The Pat McAfee Show. And even though Rodgers is a shell of the player he used to be, those appearances remain as much of a “must-see” weekly segment as there is in sports media. For some people, it’s because they still find Rodgers interesting. For others, there is a rubbernecking aspect to the segments.
But when McAfee added Rodgers as a weekly guest before the 2020 NFL season, no one could have predicted the amount of attention or headlines they were about to garner. They’re not always favorable headlines and attention, but they’re headlines and attention nonetheless.
Rodgers hosted his own weekly radio show on ESPN 540 in Milwaukee for four years. And aside from his famous “R-E-L-A-X” line, how often did those shows make national headlines? Rodgers was largely considered a boring superstar during those years. But after five years with McAfee, we know far too much about the most polarizing quarterback in the NFL. Unfortunately, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.
McAfee and Rodgers were both successful before they teamed up. Rodgers was a future Hall-of-Famer with two MVPs and a Super Bowl ring. McAfee had already joined and parted ways with Barstool Sports and CBS Sports Radio. They didn’t need each other, and the world certainly didn’t need them to find each other. But if getting attention was their only goal five years ago, then Lupica is right. It was brilliant.
