Former All-Pro punter turned sports analyst Pat McAfee isn’t thrilled with the state of NFL commentating.
The two-time Pro Bowler unleashed a scathing, expletive-laden rant Monday on “The Pat McAfee Show” about the broadcasters who called games this past weekend.
“I’m done with it,” McAfee said. “There are some commentators that f–king suck out there, that should not allowed to be covering the NFL. Send them to high school games. There are some people that should not be allowed to speak over games and it is getting to the point where it’s embarrassing almost. And I know it’s not an easy job, it’s not an easy job at all. … But there are some people who are commentating games that shouldn’t be allowed to commentate games.”
McAfee, 33, was the Colts’ seventh-round draft pick in 2009 from West Virginia. The Pennsylvania native spent eight seasons with the team before retiring in 2017. He had brief stints with Fox Sports’ and ESPN’s broadcasting teams commentating college and NFL. He currently hosts his eponymous podcast, part of the SiriusXM network, and clarified he has no plans to pursue a career in commentating.
“All these people have been hired over me so if I were to say anything negative, I would naturally look like a hater,” he said. “I want everybody to know I don’t want to be in the booth anymore so they’re not taking my job. I’m not being a hater.”
While McAfee didn’t name names specifically, he did add that he was not referring to retired cornerback Aqib Talib — who made his announcing debut for Fox this weekend — nor any of his friends.
“I don’t think we should judge [Talib], that was his first game, it’d be very rude to do so, so please do not put him in there,” he said. “I have some friends that are in there. But everybody here that knows, knows that watching a couple games yesterday, you listen to some of these f–king idiots talk and you just get dumber while listening to the game and it makes no sense to me how they have jobs.
“I think there’s enough money, there’s enough humans out there that we could get good people in there, but everybody thinks they’re super geniuses and most of them have zero self-awareness which is my biggest problem.”