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Aaron Rodgers returned to “The Pat McAfee Show” on Monday for a half-hour conversation that occasionally touched on football subjects. Early in the interview McAfee asked Rodgers if he was having more fun heading into his final training camp. Rodgers responded by airing his grievances towards ESPN for their lack of coverage of the recent Dr. Anthony Fauci Senate hearing and the Dianna Russini-Mike Vrabel scandal. Rodgers repeatedly criticized ESPN during the interview. He also made allegations about Fauci and took a victory lap about his COVID beliefs. This all took place in an interview that started on ESPN and aired in its entirety on ESPN+.
Since part of this took place live on ESPN and the entirety of it happened with the ESPN logo in the bottom corner, some people wondered how ESPN felt about Rodgers’ latest comments. Among the curious was Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio who reached out to the network for comment. Per PFT, ESPN had no comment.
By the time the show’s cable window closed at 2 p.m. and the broadcast switched to streaming-only, Rodgers had not really talked about anything but Fauci and Russini. He then continued on the live-stream and compared himself to Eminem’s character in “8 Mile.” He also shouted out Stephen A. Smith for having the courage to apologize to Kyrie Irving. That officially makes ESPN’s two highest-paid stars part of this story.
About 12 minutes into the interview, after calling ESPN a “gutless organization,” Rodgers said he only cared about “getting out there on the field and playing my best ball.” Once his attention was finally shifted to football, he was extremely complimentary of coach Mike McCarthy and wide receiver DK Metcalf.
In the final minutes of the interview, McAfee kept trying to wrap things up by saying how excited he was to watch Rodgers play football this year. That was when Rodgers revealed that he would keep turning down ESPN’s requests for a sit-down interview and gave the camera the middle finger. Again, you can watch Rodgers’ full sit-down interview on ESPN.com.
So, an eight-minute interview where Rodgers criticized ESPN and revealed he wouldn’t sit down with ESPN turned into a 28-minute interview with the ESPN logo in the corner the entire time. And a third of that took place live on ESPN.
ESPN had nothing to say about it one way or the other.
— Enjoy free coverage of the top news & trending stories with The Big Lead Newsletter —
Continue reading...
Since part of this took place live on ESPN and the entirety of it happened with the ESPN logo in the bottom corner, some people wondered how ESPN felt about Rodgers’ latest comments. Among the curious was Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio who reached out to the network for comment. Per PFT, ESPN had no comment.
Aaron Rodgers on ESPN
By the time the show’s cable window closed at 2 p.m. and the broadcast switched to streaming-only, Rodgers had not really talked about anything but Fauci and Russini. He then continued on the live-stream and compared himself to Eminem’s character in “8 Mile.” He also shouted out Stephen A. Smith for having the courage to apologize to Kyrie Irving. That officially makes ESPN’s two highest-paid stars part of this story.
About 12 minutes into the interview, after calling ESPN a “gutless organization,” Rodgers said he only cared about “getting out there on the field and playing my best ball.” Once his attention was finally shifted to football, he was extremely complimentary of coach Mike McCarthy and wide receiver DK Metcalf.
In the final minutes of the interview, McAfee kept trying to wrap things up by saying how excited he was to watch Rodgers play football this year. That was when Rodgers revealed that he would keep turning down ESPN’s requests for a sit-down interview and gave the camera the middle finger. Again, you can watch Rodgers’ full sit-down interview on ESPN.com.
So, an eight-minute interview where Rodgers criticized ESPN and revealed he wouldn’t sit down with ESPN turned into a 28-minute interview with the ESPN logo in the corner the entire time. And a third of that took place live on ESPN.
ESPN had nothing to say about it one way or the other.
— Enjoy free coverage of the top news & trending stories with The Big Lead Newsletter —
Continue reading...
