Paul Pabst on Dan Patrick’s impending retirement: ‘He completely still has his fastball’

Paul Pabst knows nobody believes Dan Patrick is actually retiring.

The longtime Dan Patrick Show executive producer appeared on 104.3 The Score in Chicago this week and addressed the skepticism that’s followed Patrick’s announcement that he’s stepping away from the daily radio show after his current contract expires in 2028.

.@PaulPabst reflects on the journey of the @dpshow and the genius of Dan Patrick. pic.twitter.com/vGITa9hSEO

— 104.3 The Score (@thescorechicago) February 16, 2026

“A lot of people don’t believe it,” Pabst said. “They’re kind of, it’s almost like a show that’s gonna go off the air that you love. You’re like, ‘They’re not really going off the air. I still watch, I still love it.’ And he could still do it.”

The skepticism is understandable. Patrick originally announced his retirement tour in July 2023 alongside news of a four-year contract extension with iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio, and Peacock — a deal that runs through early 2028 and will conclude after Super Bowl LXII in Atlanta. That’s a lot of time for someone to change their mind, and Patrick himself has admitted he’s not entirely convinced he’ll go through with it. On an October 2025 episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, Patrick said he needs to “come to grips with that” decision over the next two years, even while insisting he won’t sign another contract to host a daily radio show.

But Pabst doesn’t see someone who’s lost a step.

“I think he completely still has his fastball,” Pabst said. “If you see interviews or listen to interviews, he is the most curious, locked-in interviewer. He does this thing where he turns his shoulder, and he’s listening, and he’s curled, and that’s when I know he’s in, whether it be like Charles Barkley or Jerry West or Dale Earnhardt Jr., or whatever.”

Patrick’s approach to interviewing has always been about extracting something new. He’s repeatedly said he’s not interested in the nuts and bolts of sports, meaning he doesn’t want to discuss the Dodgers’ bullpen unless there’s an interesting story within it. That philosophy, which Patrick has credited to the Howard Stern blueprint of radio, is what separates him from most sports talk hosts. It’s also what makes him think he still has more to prove before he walks away. Patrick told GQ in 2023 that he wants to leave a legacy of specific interviews people remember and pass along, not just hot takes about what the Lakers need to do this season.

Pabst pointed to a recent Super Bowl interview with Bo Jackson as the perfect example of Patrick’s genius still fully intact.

“We got Bo Jackson on set, and we’ve never had Bo Jackson on set, and that’s like a living legend in true form of the phrase,” Pabst said. “And Dan is asking him questions, and he’s like, ‘We’ve got to get one thing that I don’t know that we don’t know about Bo Jackson.’ And he told us a story about getting a concussion and going to the other sidelines, and they had to send him back to his bench. And it was a great story, and people had never heard the story before.”

That’s the standard Patrick holds himself to.

“That’s what I think Dan’s genius is,” Pabst continued. “He wants to get you something out of every interview that you’ve never heard before.”

The retirement announcement has also produced exactly the kind of industry reaction you’d expect. Pabst revealed that people in the business have been reaching out about potentially taking over the show once Patrick steps away.

Patrick himself addressed the question of succession in April 2024, joking about how the process might work. “I had one person call me directly, who said, ‘Hey, can I put my name in the hat?'” Patrick said at the time. “And I said, ‘Well, there’s no hat.’ Well, he said, ‘Can you get a hat?’ I said, ‘Alright, I’ll get a hat.'”

Pabst later revealed on that show that three people had expressed interest in replacing Patrick after his retirement announcement, though none of them would be Danettes, Patrick’s longtime on-air crew.

Whether Patrick actually retires in 2028 remains to be seen. He’s been clear that he wants to step away while he’s still operating at full strength, and everyone around him — including Pabst — seems to think that moment hasn’t arrived yet. But Patrick is 66 years old, and two more years takes him to 68. That’s a reasonable age to target retirement, even if nobody fully believes he’ll follow through.

For now, Pabst is watching someone perform at the highest level of the craft.

“Dan is still doing it at the top of his game,” Pabst said. “That’s what’s been fun to see.”