This fall, Pat McAfee will be a thing. A good thing? A bad thing? That is not fully known. But he will be something.
McAfee, the former Pro Bowl punter who has 1.6 million Twitter followers, is going mainstream. He will be a game analyst on ESPN’s Thursday college football telecasts and he will start his own daily two-hour show on DAZN that will be syndicated by Westwood One Radio in 40 markets, including San Francisco and Indianapolis. It will be McAfee and a few of his hometown friends.
“My boys and I are just one-stop shopping, trying to take over the world,” McAfee, 32, told The Post.
McAfee has an energy to him that has already cut through on social media. Two years ago, he retired early from the Colts and, he said, there was no media interest in him except from Barstool.
He went there and did well, learning and really enjoying the content side, especially the show he did on SiriusXM. He said he left because with Barstool headquartered in New York and with McAfee in Indianapolis, the business side of the things became muddled.
McAfee is fiercely independent, which is what makes him genuine, but could be considered dangerous for a Disney-owned ESPN. His looseness is his appeal, but he may dance closer to the edge than Mickey Mouse may want. That said, he is worth a shot.
McAfee might turn out to be a 2.0 football version of Dick Vitale. Like Dickie V, you will know he is there. That could be a good thing to a lot of people, but maybe not for others.
He did a game on Fox last year between the Packers and Lions in which he called a fake field goal that went viral because of excitement that sounded as if he were a WWE hype man. (He has worked for WWE, by the way.)
“I’m not sure there are any people that have ever commentated games like me,” McAfee said. “Hopefully, I’m blazing a new trail for former players, who have a little bit of personality. Not just plucked [from] places for Xs and Os.”
He campaigned to replace Jason Witten on “Monday Night Football” and his followers had it trending on Twitter.
“At the beginning, I thought it was a big joke, an absolute joke,” McAfee said. “My people started pushing for it.”
He began to think there was a chance. Now, with agents from CAA and even more understanding of the business, he understands it didn’t really have a shot at happening … yet.
On Thursdays, he will be teamed with Adam Amin and McAfee’s former teammate, Matt Hasselbeck. ESPN goes up against Fox’s NFL games those nights, but McAfee will likely make some noise.
His DAZN show is a bit more straightfoward. His hometown Pittsburgh buddies already have a following and a format. DAZN, the $20-per-month subscription platform, needs the content because it is barren between fights and its Adnan Virk MLB show.
“I’d like to be a mental vacation for people,” McAfee said.
McAfee’s personality is very engaging, but it is a lot. He may have to win over some people, especially on the game broadcasts. He has done it before.
When veteran linebacker D’Qwell Jackson came to the Colts years ago, his locker was placed next to McAfee. McAfee arrived in his hyper, upbeat way one very early morning, saying, “Let’s have the greatest day!”
“He looked at me with disgust and said, ‘Is this every day?’” McAfee recalled.
McAfee replied, “Every day.”
He and Jackson are now close friends, McAfee said.
Luck’s future: If Andrew Luck wanted to pursue a career as a TV analyst, network executives told The Post they would be interested. This is unsurprising since they love having quarterbacks on their rosters, especially ones as smart as Luck.
That said, it seems unlikely in the near term and maybe ever that Luck would want to do that, but he is very thoughtful.
One prominent NFL play-by-player said Luck was different from most players in their pregame meetings. Network announcers get to meet the day before the game privately with coaches and key players. Though they are off-the-record, they can still be trite. Not Luck. He would really think about questions and try to give a helpful answer.
Clicker consulting: We outsourced this one to probably the greatest NFL play-by-player we have ever heard, Al Michaels.
In calling football, what is the one aspect of play-by-play that people may not realize is vital?
“I would say the most important element would be the rhythm of the game,” Michaels said. “You’re there to help the viewer understand for sure, to maybe educate them, to inform them, but it’s also not to overwhelm the situation. Stay in sync with what they’re seeing with their eyes.”
That name: DAZN is pronounced DA-Zone. The reason it has that name, we are told, is because it is something that they could obtain legally internationally and can be understood in all languages. Now you can go back to calling it “Days Inn.”