WATCH: Pat McAfee Show reacts to #Bills-Dion Dawkins extension:
Joke made by Dion Dawkins aside, the Buffalo Bills and the left tackle have agreed to a contract extension.
Dawkins, 29, is under contract until 2027 now and the Pat McAfee Show reacted to both. Not only was the roundtable happy for Dawkins to get his pay day, the troll made by Dawkins was loved just as much.
“Dion Dawkins has been on a little bit of a troll streak, and we would like to let him know we appreciate that,” McAfee said.
The segment on Dawkins can be found in the clip below:
Bills quarterback Josh Allen has already strapped into his position for the Stefon Diggs offseason show.
While we’ve only just begun the offseason, we’ve already seen plenty of headlines on the Bills receiver.
While sometimes it feels unjust, on occasion Diggs doesn’t do himself many favors. At the 2024 Pro Bowl, Diggs could have simply said during an interview with NFL Network that, yes, he will be back with the Bills next season.
Instead…
“I don’t know, as far as the money and that type of stuff,” Diggs said when asked about his future with the Bills. “I can’t control none of that.”
Even so, there is no anti-Bills note in there, so you can see why some say Diggs’ situation is often blown up. Consider Bills quarterback Josh Allen firmly in that area.
Speaking with the Pat McAfee Show from Super Bowl 58 in Las Vegas, Allen credited Diggs with helping advance his career.
“I owe a lot of my success in my career to him,” Allen said.
The QBs full thoughts can be found in the clip below:
"I owe a lot of my success in my career to Stefon Diggs..
I love that guy like a brother and I always will..
We have made it to championship weekend in the NFL.
With Kansas City playing in Baltimore against the Ravens on Sunday with the AFC title on the line, Taylor Swift is expected to be in attendance to support her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The pair started dating over the summer, and the 12-time Grammy winner has gone to 11 Chiefs games since September 24.
While there were quite a few cutaways to the Eras Tour singer in that first game, the number and frequency of her appearances on screen has dropped as the season has progressed, mainly showing her briefly after a big reception by Kelce or moment for the Chiefs.
Former NFL star J.J. Watt made an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday, discussing the playoffs and more. Naturally, Swift came up as the room discussed her tour resuming and the potential for her to attend the Super Bowl (should the Chiefs make it). After McAfee explains that Swift’s two-night, sold out shows at the Melbourne Cricket Ground will have over 100,000 fans in attendance, Watt had a brilliant response.
“But I don’t know why they’re showing her on TV,” Watt said with obvious sarcasm, calling out the Chads, Brads and dads that have spent the season whining about the infrequent cutaways to the world’s biggest pop star.
“Is A.Q. one of these tough guys?” Watt asked of The Pat McAfee Show’s A.Q. Shipley before putting on an exaggerated macho voice. “Hey, why are we showing Taylor Swift, I wanna see the football. Oh wait, there’s Jay-Z! Yeah, Jay-Z!”
Although Shipley tried to feebly make his tired “point” known about how it’s just so exhausting to see whole MINUTES of a fan over the course of a three-hour broadcast, Watt was having none of it.
See what new Alabama head coach had to say about his transition, the team, recruiting and more on ESPN’s Pat McAfee Show!
Alabama football head coach Kalen DeBoer has been relatively quiet since he was introduced as Nick Saban’s successor. For fans of the program, this is nothing new, as Saban was also pretty quiet. Also akin to Saban, DeBoer appeared on ESPN’s ‘Pat McAfee Show’ today to discuss his new job.
With the offseason being so fresh, there’s only so much that DeBoer can do for the program besides working the recruiting trail. This works in his favor as he’s able to get comfortable in Tuscaloosa, at new facilities with all new people.
He spoke about his transition to being the new Alabama head coach and what’s coming up for the program in the near future, as well as some expectations.
Dan Lanning went on the Pat McAfee Show and discussed Oregon’s unique QB situation for 2024.
This is going to be a story in 2024 and be a talking point for nearly every Oregon football telecast next season.
The Ducks will possess one of the more unique quarterback situations in the nation with a graduate transfer in Dillon Gabriel, and former 5-star UCLA quarterback Dante Moore. Behind them, the Ducks also have redshirt freshman Austin Novosad, and true freshman Luke Moga.
It’s an embarrassment of riches and a depth chart that not only has quantity, but quality. Oregon coach Dan Lanning went on the Pat McAfee Show on ESPN recently and discussed his signal callers and when they’ll bring to the Ducks in 2024.
Competition is the secret and those are guys that want to come compete, want to be the best version of themselves and they know they can come do it here. They see what I see in this place. And we want to get great players. One thing we tell our players when they come, like the minute you get here we’re going to go try to bring better and continue to bring better and that’s how you get the best out of yourselves. We want competitors. Those guys are both great competitors, great quarterbacks and we’re going to have a bunch of them on this team that can make us great.
While the belief is that Moore will sit behind Gabriel for the 2024 season and be ready to take over in 2025, don’t be surprised if we get more of a QB competition than some might think leading up to this coming season. Moore is the former No. 3 overall player in the 2023 class, and he could very well push Gabriel for the starting spot.
It’s time for ESPN to put the Pat McAfee Show in check
The Pat McAfee Show was purchased by ESPN with the idea of it being a major solution to the problems of the company’s future. Instead, over these last few weeks, it’s been much more of a problem.
At the center of it all is Aaron Rodgers, who has managed to create quite the circus act with his last few appearances on McAfee’s platform.
In between all of that, chaos ensued. McAfee called out ESPN executive Norby Williamson by name for supposedly leaking false ratings information to the press in an attempt to “sabotage” McAfee’s show.
Pat McAfee — while on ESPN — accuses certain ESPN executives of sabotaging his show and leaking info to the media.
It doesn’t stop there. Rodgers made his weekly Tuesday appearance on the show and went back at Kimmel, once again trying to downplay the tie between the late-night host and Epstein he created as a simple shot at Kimmel with no incriminating ties.
He then proceeded to call out former For The Win founding editor and current ESPN executive Mike Foss, who accurately described the initial Kimmel claim from Rodgers as a “dumb and factually inaccurate” joke.
Rodgers asserted that Foss’ comments did more harm than good while calling him out directly for his apology. He called out Foss as the problem with the “mainstream media” and began an unbridled rant about conspiracy theories and COVID-19 and everything else on his mind with Pat McAfee and his co-host A.J. Hawk silently capitulating their airwaves to the Jets quarterback.
Amidst all that babble, Rodgers dropped a cherry on top about Foss. “I don’t think Mike Foss watched the clip,” Rodgers said. “I don’t know who that is. I don’t work for you, Mike.”
During the Pat McAfee Show on ESPN today, Aaron Rodgers went after the mainstream media — including ESPN SVP of Production Mike Foss.
Ah, and there it is, folks. Yes. Therein lies the problem. Rodgers came on ESPN’s airwaves on an ESPN property to, once again for a second consecutive week, call out an ESPN executive. And he’s not wrong! He doesn’t work for ESPN. But the Pat McAfee Show is an ESPN show. Can anyone tell me the last time nonsense like this was espoused on an ESPN program without consequence? I mean, my goodness. Bill Simmons was suspended for three weeks just for calling Roger Goodell a liar. Jemele Hill was suspended for two weeks for a tweet.
Pat McAfee calls an ESPN executive a “rat” live on the air and nothing happens? Got it. Aaron Rodgers can tell Mike Foss he doesn’t work for him and continue to come on an ESPN show? OK, cool.
It seems to me that anybody who is a part of this show is given carte blanche. They’re allowed to do what they will. Call out executives. Rattle off your wildest conspiracy. As long as they watch the clip on TikTok? It’s all gravy.
To understand how we got here, you’ve got to understand where ESPN is coming from. The company has a problem — it’s had it for years. It’s the same problem so many other sports media companies have run into. The problem is this: Gen Z doesn’t like sports.
Only 23 percent of Zoomers would describe themselves as “passionate” sports fans, per the New York Times. That fact alone poses an existential problem that ESPN and every other sports media company has been wracking their brains to try and solve.
Enter Pat McAfee. For ESPN, he is supposed to be the solution — the cure. To an extent, the Pat McAfee Show is exactly what the doctor ordered.
McAfee draws in the audience ESPN covets. The viewership numbers of aren’t that impressive — it only averaged 332,000 viewers through December, per The Athletic. For perspective, First Take averaged 611,000 through December in the time slot just before McAfee’s show.
But McAfee wasn’t hired for television ratings. Instead, it’s the multi-platform audience he brings to the table that ESPN has proudly touted since acquiring his show in May of 2023.
It’s because of that and the $17 million annual salary he’s paid by ESPN that McAfee can go unchecked. He makes the big bucks. Just like any other company out there, he’s treated differently. So are his friends. Rodgers falls under that umbrella.
But folks, this can’t last. Not like this.
McAfee, Rodgers and company have become a problem ESPN needs to solve. Every week the show turns into whatever the opposite of PBS is. Rodgers rattles off unchecked conspiracy theories and baseless COVID-19 claims that have been debunked for years at this point. Now, they’re calling out executives and getting into verbal spats with other Disney-based talents.
Look, man. This is all fun and games now. But, like we just saw with Kimmel, it doesn’t take much for everything to go left. Maybe Kimmel won’t sue. Maybe the Disney-on-Disney beef won’t escalate any further. But this is absolutely going to happen again. It might not be Kimmel, but it’ll certainly be someone else. And the results could be much, much worse.
That’s why ESPN should nip this in the bud right here and right now. Otherwise, this dumpster fire might turn into ash quicker than any of us ever expected.
While ESPN apologized for Aaron Rodgers’ comments on The Pat McAfee Show, McAfee himself took a much different tone.
ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show has found itself in hot water and potential legal jeopardy with one of the parent company’s biggest stars, and McAfee doesn’t seem to be on the same page as his bosses.
During an appearance earlier this week, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers — a frequent guest on the show — implied Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, would appear on the Jeffrey Epstein list, seemingly without any evidence.
ABC is owned by Disney, as is ESPN.
After Kimmel threatened potential legal action, ESPN senior vice president Mike Foss called Rodgers’ comments “dumb and factually inaccurate,” Front Office Sports first reported Friday.
“It never should have happened,” Foss said in a statement obtained by USA TODAY Sports. “We all realized that in the moment.”
Front Office Sports continued reporting that “Foss did not condone Rodgers’s comments, but he says he expects the Jets quarterback to remain on the show through the rest of the football season.” More from the report:
“Pat announced today that he’s planning on Aaron joining the show Tuesday. Aaron made a dumb and factually inaccurate joke about Jimmy Kimmel,” Foss tells Front Office Sports on Friday. “The show will continue to evolve. It wouldn’t surprise me if Aaron’s role evolves with it.”
McAfee has taken a much different tone, however. He initially brushed off Rodgers’ comments as a joke, and he took his rhetoric a step further on his Friday show.
He accused Norby Williamson, an executive senior vice president of studio and event production at ESPN, of sabotaging his program. McAfee went as far as calling Williamson a “rat.”
Pat McAfee — while on ESPN — accuses certain ESPN executives of sabotaging his show and leaking info to the media.
McAfee said he believes Williamson is leaking false information about his show in order to make the program look bad. The Pat McAfee Show began on YouTube in 2020 but has aired on ESPN since September when the network acquired it in a lucrative deal.
McAfee also appears as a co-host for ESPN’s College GameDay.
While it’s clear that the suits at ESPN are intent on smoothing things over with Kimmel, who has hosted his show on ABC since 2003, McAfee seems to have different plans.
Gooooood morning, family! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for rocking with us this morning. We appreciate you reading!
I’m sure you saw the uneasiness that came across the internet from Aaron Rodgers’ latest guest appearance on the Pat McAfee Show. It’s been all over the internet at this point.
Rodgers’ appearances on the McAfee Show are normally cringeworthy enough without the Jets’ star quarterback basically saying one of ABC and Disney’s biggest stars could be on the Epstein list that will reportedly be released. But, uh, that’s exactly what happened after McAfee’s co-host, AJ Hawk, brought up the list to Rodgers on Tuesday.
For those of you who don’t know, it’s a list of over 200 names of the business associates Jeffrey Epstein worked with. Epstein was an alleged sex trafficker who hanged himself while imprisoned back in 2019. This list supposedly contains the names of some of the biggest luminaries, celebrities and politicians we know.
To be clear, being on that list doesn’t mean that the individual is guilty of sex trafficking or participating in any of the crimes Epstein allegedly took part in. But it could mean that. That’s why this list is a big deal.
That’s what Rodgers — seemingly baselessly — directly accused ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel of. The Jets’ QB said “A lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, are really hoping that doesn’t come out,” during his appearance on Tuesday.
That triggered a swift — and strong — response from Kimmel, himself, who actually threatened to sue the quarterback if he keeps this up (WARNING: NSFW language ahead).
Dear Aasshole: for the record, I’ve not met, flown with, visited, or had any contact whatsoever with Epstein, nor will you find my name on any “list” other than the clearly-phony nonsense that soft-brained wackos like yourself can’t seem to distinguish from reality. Your reckless… https://t.co/p8eug12uiS
Jimmy Kimmel Live! is one of Disney’s premier programs on ABC, which is one of the company’s flagship networks. The Pat McAfee Show is an ESPN property, which is also owned by Disney. So, through that connection, these are two programs on sister networks working under the same umbrella.
For Rodgers to create a situation that Disney CEO Bob Iger may have to step in on to mediate and mend fences is not a good look, plain and simple. It’s getting in the way of business. And, if it gets in the way, it may be moved out of the way. Again, the Mouse doesn’t play when it comes to money.
If it is? Then: good riddance. Aaron Rodgers has been nothing but a public nuisance. He comes on the show every week, puts on his best tinfoil hat and just throws baseless claims everywhere under the guise of doing his own research.
In reality, this is just a dude who loves to hear himself talk. He can’t get enough of his own celebrity. He’s totally wrapped up in it — consumed by it. His hubris is constantly in control. That’s even the case in this situation here, which essentially stems from Kimmel making fun of Aaron Rodgers a year ago for, well, doing exactly what he did on Tuesday.
We’ll see how this ultimately turns out. There’s been no official response from Disney on all of this as of yet. It’s hard to feel bad for the company considering that this is what the Pat McAfee Show has always been. Working with McAfee and giving him the longest leash by far at the company means dealing with problems like this one. ESPN and Disney earned this chaos — it’s well deserved.
Pat McAfee isn’t going anywhere. The company pays him way too much for him to just be dismissed. He’s interwoven in its programming and will be for years to come.
You can be sure of one thing, though. The company is monitoring this. There’s a solid chance that this is the last time Rodgers will be putting his foot in his mouth — at least on ESPN’s airwaves, anyway.
A 141-point win is WILD
(AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
When I woke up this morning and saw the box score from Grambling State’s women’s basketball team at home against The College of Biblical Studies, I thought I was looking at a typo.
But nope. The final score was 159-18. That’s really a thing that happened. One team made 70 shots. The other team made 8. Two of Grambling’s players scored at least 20 points, which means they outscored CBS by themselves.
Tom Brady may have been right all along. In Christian D’Andrea’s latest NFL power rankings, he makes the point that both the 49ers and Ravens seem like legitimate title contenders.
Everyone else? They’re kind of just…middling. Literally. Here’s Christian with more.
That makes this week’s power rankings a tricky enterprise. The AFC and NFC have each crowned their regular season winners. The Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers have each locked up home field advantage through the playoffs. After that? Well, it’s tough to have confidence in teams like the Eagles (spiraling to their doom), Kansas City Chiefs (host to a suddenly pedestrian offense), Dallas Cowboys (can’t win big games on the road) or Miami Dolphins (can’t win big games unless they’re against the Cowboys).
That leaves a ranking system with a lush second tier of untrustable teams. Here’s how they shook out after 2023’s penultimate week.
The NFL’s playoffs are a different beast. All anyone has to do is simply win one game and they advance, so anything can happen. But, man. The 49ers and the Ravens just seem unbeatable right now. Or, maybe more accurately, everyone else just seems extremely beatable. At least by good team standards, anyway.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading the Morning Win today. We appreciate you. Have a fantastic Wednesday. Let’s chat again tomorrow. Until then, peace.
Aaron Rodgers makes case for Josh Allen as MVP (video):
Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers even thinks Josh Allen deserves some consideration for the 2023 MVP Award.
Breaking down candidates during his weekly segment on the Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers said that the Bills quarterback should get consideration. But things have to go according to plan in his eyes.
Rodgers thinks as long as the Bills (9-6) win out over their final two games, Allen should be in contention.
“How do you not put him in the conversation,” Rodgers said.
Bills running back James Cook joined a segment of the Pat McAfee Show this past week. Cook is fresh off a massive game against the Cowboys where he had 221 scrimmage yards.
Cook discussed the improvements the Bills have shown in recent weeks and discussed even more. See the attached clips below for Cook’s appearance on the Pat McAfee Show:
