Pat McAfee Shuts Down Rumors ESPN Cut His Broadcast Over Aaron Rodgers’ Vaccine Comments

Ahmad Austin Jr.Nov 1st, 2023, 4:39 pm
 

Pat McAfee on Wednesday confirmed ESPN did not suddenly take him off the air when Aaron Rodgers alluded to the Covid-19 vaccine.

During Rodgers’ Tuesday appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, McAfee and former NFL player A.J. Hawk asked the quarterback what he’d be dressing up as for Halloween. Rodgers said he had it on the day before, leading Hawk to guess that it was Dr. Anthony Fauci. Someone else on McAfee’s show shouted out, “A vaccine,” while McAfee guessed that Rodgers was a doctor.

The guesses all stemmed from the fact that Rodgers has repeatedly expressed his skepticism toward the vaccine. In recent weeks, he’s reignited his commentary thanks to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce appearing in vaccine ads.

A few seconds after finally revealing he was a spike protein for Halloween, the feed suddenly cut out. That led some to speculate it was a deliberate move by ESPN to prevent Rodgers from expressing his stance against vaccines.

That theory, however, was quickly debunked when it was discovered it was only happening to a specific cable provider. The full, interrupted clip was posted online.

On Wednesday’s episode, former player J.J. Watt asked McAfee about it. McAfee confirmed it was merely a provider issue while also taking a shot at a popular content aggregator on Twitter.

“One provider. That’s fake news,” McAfee told Watt. “Don’t listen to everything MLFootball says on the internet. Can’t do that. That was only one provider, but Aaron did text me. He was like, ‘Heard we got cut off?'”

Aggregators like MLFootball and Dov Kleiman have faced increased scrutiny lately. In addition to merely reposting the content of actual journalists, the accounts have shown a tendency to leave important context out of reports and mislead readers.

Watch above via ESPN.

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