Pat McAfee was supposed to be the solution for ESPN. Now he's a huge problem

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Gooood morning, winners! Hope you're having a fantastic week so far. We're almost halfway through and so close to playoff time in the NFL. Before we get into that, though, can we talk about the chaos that ensued on ESPN yesterday?

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.

Last week Rodgers inexplicably used the platform to suggest ties between ABC's late-night show host, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jeffrey Epstein, who was a convicted sex offender and a disgraced financer.

Kimmel immediately called Rodgers out for his claim and threatened to sue. McAfee tried to downplay Rodgers' accusation as a "joke" but it didn't work. Kimmel fired back on his show's opening monologue of the year, taking Rodgers to task for his suggestion.

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.

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."

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.

Titans, what are we doing here?

So if you hadn't heard already, the Tennessee Titans fired Mike Vrabel on Tuesday in what felt like a pretty surprising move.

Tennessee wasn't very good this season. And when you peel back the curtain, it was pretty clear he needed to go. But it's not like he had much to work with, anyway. Tennessee's lack of talent came back to bite it.

Christian D'Andrea has more on that here.

"Two things can be true here. Vrabel needed to go. He was a gutsy coach who made a run-heavy offense work in pass-first NFL, but that approach was no longer viable.

He hadn’t won a playoff game since January 2020. His star tailback is a pending free agent and the quarterback he’d pumped up to new heights had deflated on his way to the open market, since replaced by a second-round rookie. A new era is on the way. A hard reset was necessary."

Vrabel was cooked, to be sure. But the Titans just didn't give him much to work with. As D'Andrea writes, a hard reset is necessary. But the organization will need to be willing to pay top dollar for talent at multiple positions if it wants to win instead of shipping it off. Yes, I'm talking about A.J. Brown.

The ball is in your court, Ran Carthon.

Boooooo Lions fans

If we're being honest, I think most Lions fans probably have a favorable opinion of Matthew Stafford. That's reasonable. Stafford was Detroit's quarterback for a long time. It wasn't a very productive stint, obviously, but still! He was there! Stafford was in the trenches during some of the worst times with that team. So it makes sense that some fans would still love him.

But fandom is not a monolith, folks. And some aren't rocking with Stafford after all this time — especially now that the Lions have to play Stafford's Rams in the first round of the playoffs.

Some Lions fans put together a Stafford "jersey ban" for Sunday's game. Stafford's wife, Kelly, wasn't having it. Our Andrew Joseph has more here.

"So, one Lions fan page might have given Stafford some extra bulletin-board material ahead of Sunday’s return to Detroit in the NFC wild-card round. Stafford’s wife, Kelly, certainly took notice.

A Lions fan Instagram page, thedetroitline, mocked up an official-looking graphic to propose a ban of Stafford jerseys at Ford Field. It was a silly thing to even suggest and clearly didn’t come from the Lions in any capacity. But Kelly appeared to think it was an actual ban or movement and expressed her disappointment in the comments."

I'm with Kelly. It's a bit disappointing to see fans behaving so crassly. Especially when Stafford gave 12 years of his career to Detroit. Even if it amounted to nothing of consequence, he didn't bail out until the team was ready to move on.

Hopefully, even if it's just for a brief moment, Stafford will still be able to feel some love from fans in Detroit on Sunday.

Quick hits: What do the Bears do at No. 1? ... Paige Bueckers is skipping out on the WNBA? ... and more

— Which QB will the Bears take at No. 1? Or, actually, will they take a QB at all? Christian D'Andrea asks the question here.

— UCONN's Paige Bueckers says she's in no rush to declare for the WNBA. That's good news for my Mystics. Meghan Hall has more here.

— Are we about to see the coldest playoff game of all time? Charles Curtis has more here.

— Folks! The Paul Finebaum-Jim Harbaugh beef might be over! Probably not, but maybe! Meghan Hall has more.

— If the Hawks trade Dejounte Murray back to the Spurs it'd have to go down as one of the worst moves in NBA history. Bryan Kalbrosky has more.

— The odds for where Bill Belichick will be coaching next season are out and the Patriots are not the favorite. Ben Fawkes has more.

That's all, folks! Thanks so much for reading TMW today. We appreciate you. Have an amazing Wednesday. We'll be back again tomorrow. Until then, peace. We out.

-Sykes ✌️