Aaron Rodgers fans are not happy with Pat McAfee. McAfee, whose show could do with a little less controversy, seems to have gotten the short end of the stick in the whole Jimmy Kimmel-Aaron Rodgers feud. While announcing the end of the ART season, McAfee looked a little too happy, leading many to hypothesize that he was glad to have Rodgers taken off his hands.
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Yankees Minority Owner Patrick Bet-David, for one, didn’t like the relief on McAfee’s face as he announced that the 4x MVP would not be returning on the show this season. David took to X to slam McAfee for letting “Disney/ESPN” win by letting them take Aaron Rodgers off the show.
It seems, however, that McAfee was simply celebrating the Aaron Rodgers Tuesdays season 4, and not the QB’s outsing. Though the analyst can hardly blame people for taking it at face value when he said, “So ‘Aaron Rodgers Tuesday,’ season four, is done. There could be a lot of people that are happy with that. Myself included, to be honest with you. The way it ended, it got real loud.“
McAfee has drawn significant criticism for letting the injured Jets quarterback air every single thought that comes to his mind on the show, and now that Rodgers is gone (just for the rest of the season, mind you), people are still not happy. Talk about the short stick. But Rodgers is not short of supporters, in fact, he’s already gotten an invitation to be part of another show, where he can ramble about as many conspiracy theories as he wants by Fox News contributor Clay Travis.
Another sports commentator in his camp is Jason Whitlock. Defending Rodgers against the “corporate media,” and what he describes as Jimmy Kimmel’s clever attempt at silencing Rodgers’ truth by playing the victim, Whitlock launched an impassioned tirade against “the people they give these platforms to…” According to Whitlock,
“(They) lie at every turn. They misinform at every turn. Aaron Rodgers was right about the Covid vaccine, and corporate media and their puppet masters will not leave it alone.”
According to Whitlock and Travis, it all boils down to Aaron Rodgers’ take on the Covid vaccine. What’s interesting is that the vaccine wasn’t even a part of the discussion amid the ongoing beef between Rodgers and Kimmel. As Patrick Bet-David points towards ESPN/Disney “winning” and Whitlock at “corporate media and their puppet masters,” let’s unravel this web.
Where does ESPN/Disney Fit in All This?
Jimmy Kimmel hosts his show on ABC, and Pat McAfee on ESPN. Both of these are owned by Disney. Aaron Rodgers making inflammatory comments about Kimmel, “undeniably one of the brightest stars in the Disney universe,” on McAfee’s show (that he hosts on ESPN) surely complicated matters for the former punter.
While McAfee and ESPN both apologized to Kimmel, for Rodgers’s words subtly pointing towards a connection between Kimmel and the convicted criminal Jeffrey Epstein, there was no apology from Rodgers. In his non-apology, Rodgers not only further made egregious statements about Kimmel, but he even assailed a high-level ESPN executive (again on Pat McAfee’s ESPN show!)
Shortly after, the end of the ART season was announced. Whether his fourth season will end up being his last is not yet confirmed, but if he’s gone, he’s exited with a blast, unlike his exit from his first season with the Jets.
