report from The Athletic\u2019s Andrew Marchand<\/a> provides new insight into the behind-the-scenes happenings of McAfee\u2019s current run at the Worldwide Leader. And that includes the news that Schefter has been \u201cessentially banned\u201d since March when he failed to make an appearance at the former All-Pro punter\u2019s request.<\/p>\nAccording to the report, the incident in question occurred during the NFL\u2019s free agency deadline with McAfee wanting Schefter to appear on his show. The NFL insider, however, was unable to as he was busy appearing on the free agency special that aired on ESPN2, resulting in him having \u201cbanished\u201d from The Pat McAfee Show ever since.<\/p>\n
Despite the apparent dispute, McAfee Show producer\/co-host Ty Schmit has maintained a presence on Schefter\u2019s podcast. Meanwhile, the NFL Network\u2019s Ian Rapoport \u2014 a previous PMS regular \u2014 has made frequent appearances on the program\u00a0in the time since, even guest-hosting the show from its Indianapolis studio at one point.<\/p>\n
Coincidentally or not, ESPN told Marchand that Schefter is expected to make his return to The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday, where it would hardly be surprising if Thursday\u2019s report is addressed. Meanwhile, ESPN president of content Burke Magnus praised McAfee\u2019s relationship with the network in a statement to The Athletic (McAfee didn\u2019t return any messages, per Marchand).<\/p>\n
\u201cPat and his show are thriving on ESPN,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cWe are very pleased with the partnership. That said, in the nearly three years since Pat has brought his show to our platforms, we\u2019ve continuously seen those out there that are seemingly obsessed with wanting to see Pat fail on ESPN. This rumor is just the latest example of that. Pat and his show continue to break the mold and reach new audiences, and we look forward to the continued success together.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also worth noting that Schefter was present on McAfee\u2019s program when the WWE Raw announcer famously discussed an unfounded rumor<\/a> about a 19-year-old Ole Miss freshman\u2019s sex life in late-February, although there isn\u2019t any indication that played a role in his effective ban (Schefter didn\u2019t actively participate in the discussion at the time). With Schefter set to make his return on Thursday, it appears whatever issues the two sides had have seen been smoothed over. Still, there will undoubtedly be more attention placed on their interactions moving forward as a result of Thursday\u2019s report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eagle-eye viewers of The Pat McAfee Show may have noticed Adam Schefter\u2019s absence from the program in recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4191,7,6,955,7991],"class_list":{"0":"post-124545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-adam-schefter","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pat-mcafee","12":"tag-the-pat-mcafee-show"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114671592853061410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}