From drunken antics to ruining his team's shot at greatness, Pat McAfee has seen some career highs...and major personal lows.
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00:00From drunken antics to ruining his team's shot at greatness,
00:04Pat McAfee has seen some career highs and major personal lows.
00:09McAfee got married in 2020, tying the knot with his longtime girlfriend, Samantha.
00:14The following year, however, she shared a heartbreaking social media post,
00:18revealing that they had not only recently endured a miscarriage, but that they had already had one
00:23due to an ectopic pregnancy that forced her to have one of her fallopian tubes removed.
00:28The second miscarriage came with some severe complications
00:31that resulted in surgeons removing her other fallopian tube, with Samantha tweeting,
00:36They found I had internal bleeding again due to the pregnancy being in my tube,
00:40and it had burst. I needed emergency surgery to remove my remaining tube."
00:44In November 2022, however, the couple announced some joyous news in a joint Instagram post,
00:50revealing they were expecting their first child. The loss of her fallopian tubes led
00:54them to pursue in vitro fertilization, which was by no means an easy process.
01:00As Samantha shared in her post, she was able to conceive, quote,
01:03after about 150 shots, a surgery, a transfer, countless blood tests, waiting on embryos,
01:10genetic testing. While losing two babies was no doubt tragic for the couple,
01:14they had much to celebrate when, in May 2023, they announced the birth of their newborn daughter.
01:20During a June 2024 episode of his show,
01:23McAfee had some devastating news to share about someone very close to him.
01:27My father-in-law passed away unexpectedly after the show ended yesterday in a hospital here
01:35in Indianapolis."
01:37As McAfee explained, his wife's father had been hospitalized with an unspecified infection.
01:42The treatment that he'd been undergoing had seemingly been working, and his family was
01:47told he was on the mend and would be discharged within a few days. McAfee then detailed what
01:52happened next, saying,
01:53"...we were all in high hopes with incredible optimism. And then yesterday,
01:57literally as the show was ending, my wife calls me and says that I have to get to the hospital
02:02because there had been an emergency."
02:04McAfee shared the wisdom that he'd taken from the tragic experience,
02:08noting that his wife was able to tell her father that she loved him before he passed.
02:12McAfee went on to say,
02:14"...I think this is a nice piece of perspective and a moment to tell everybody,
02:18hey, tell your people you love them. You literally have no idea what's going to come."
02:23McAfee grew up playing soccer, developing a skill for kicking a ball great distances
02:27with pinpoint accuracy. As he grew older, he envisioned himself becoming a kicker in the NFL.
02:33McAfee was still in high school when the ambitious Pittsburgh teenager learned of
02:37a national kicking competition that was being held by college football scouts.
02:41McAfee knew he'd be able to nail it, but there was one big, seemingly insurmountable problem.
02:46The competition was being held in Miami, and it would cost him $1,500 to get there.
02:52That was $1,500 he didn't have, and his journey could have ended then and there.
02:57Rather than throw in the towel, however, McAfee instead hatched an audacious make-or-break scheme.
03:03According to the former kicker, he learned about a shady basement poker game with high
03:07stakes and big bets, and borrowed $100 from a friend and staked himself in the game,
03:13with the aim of walking out of there with enough to get him to Miami.
03:16"...dumb thought, blindly optimistic, pretty narcissistic as well, now that I think about it."
03:23Yet, despite all odds, McAfee's gambit apparently worked. McAfee claims he won
03:29$1,400 at the game and made it to Miami, where he kicked nine field goals,
03:34one after another, from increasingly further distances.
03:37That demonstration ultimately landed him a scholarship at West Virginia University.
03:43While playing college football for the West Virginia Mountaineers, McAfee proved to be
03:47a standout as a punter and kicker, demonstrating an impressive knack for field goals that hit their
03:53mark. That said, no kicker has an impeccable record, and McAfee's skills failed him during
03:58a crucial game, at the worst possible moment. During a key 2007 game between the Mountaineers
04:04and the team's bitter rivals, the University of Pittsburgh Panthers, McAfee botched two
04:08ridiculously easy kicks. Those missed kicks contributed to the Mountaineers' 13-9 loss to
04:15the Panthers. That loss was not only embarrassing, but also cost the team an opportunity to play in
04:20that year's BCS Championship game, which McAfee was confident WVU would win. After that loss,
04:27what had been a powerful college football team began to splinter,
04:30all of which rested on McAfee's shoulders.
04:33McAfee was pretty distraught, a situation that wasn't helped by the savage treatment he
04:38experienced from Mountaineers fans. That included death threats and disgruntled fans trashing his
04:43yard and vandalizing his car. McAfee has since called it easily one of the worst nights of his
04:48life.
04:49"...and it just is a moment that I have tried to basically bury deep because of how
04:55much guilt I feel from what happened that evening."
04:58Feeling responsible for blowing the opportunity that could have led to his team playing for
05:03the championship, McAfee contemplated giving up completely. He considered dropping out of
05:08college and retreating into the shadows.
05:10"...thought about maybe disappearing,
05:12never being seen again after that. I was told it by a lot of people walking by our house."
05:17Looking back on his despair, McAfee told Sports Illustrated that he felt so awful
05:22that he'd even flirted with the notion of ending it all, saying,
05:25"...I didn't know if I wanted to live anymore.
05:27My life changed immediately that day. It was a terrible f-----g night, to be honest with you."
05:33"...I hit rock bottom, I'd say, that evening."
05:36He got in his car and drove, unsure whether he'd come back. Ultimately, he did,
05:41shouldering his responsibility for the loss and moving forward. Two years later,
05:45he was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts. That marked the beginning of an NFL career,
05:50but it wasn't the end of his troubles.
05:53In October 2010, McAfee was picked up by cops when a woman called 911,
05:58claiming that a shirtless, dripping wet, and clearly intoxicated man was attempting to break
06:03into her car. When officers arrived on the scene and asked McAfee how much he'd had to drink,
06:08McAfee answered,
06:10"...a lot, because I'm drunk."
06:12After sobering up in a jail cell, the next morning, McAfee called his father. As it turned
06:17out, his dad had already seen the headlines, and promptly hung up on him. As McAfee told Indy Star
06:23in 2016,
06:24"...at that moment, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear."
06:28However, McAfee's arrest and the negative publicity it generated proved to have a
06:32silver lining. He said,
06:34"...if it wasn't for that evening, I certainly wouldn't be in the NFL right now."
06:39He was forced into the realization that he was jeopardizing the career
06:42he'd worked so hard to achieve, with his arrest serving as a brutal wake-up call.
06:48While Pat McAfee's self-destructive behavior could have cut short his career in the NFL,
06:53there were other factors that were also contributing to that same outcome.
06:57In 2017, after eight years with the Colts, McAfee announced that he was retiring.
07:02During an appearance on an Indianapolis radio station, McAfee revealed that the
07:06joints in his legs were essentially shot, saying,
07:09"...I mean, my brain and my shoulders are good, because I don't play a hand-to-hand
07:13combat position in the NFL, but my knees and joints have just been beat up."
07:17He theorized that all the soccer he'd played in his youth had also contributed
07:22to his knees' deterioration. Speaking about his retirement on The Dan Patrick Show,
07:26McAfee confirmed that the condition of his knees had grown so bad
07:30that he'd already undergone surgery, with more on the horizon.
07:33"...the last half of the season, I couldn't really walk much on days
07:36that I can't. I just told him to lay in bed and ice my knees. I felt like a 90-year-old man."
07:42After his retirement from the NFL, McAfee began carving out a career in the world of podcasting,
07:47first with Barstool Sports, before moving his podcast to other outlets.
07:51McAfee had a firm belief that he'd be an asset as a football analyst on televised games,
07:56insistent that he could bring a lot to the table with commentary that was as
08:00entertaining as it was informed. However, the executives who ran the sports division
08:05of American television networks thought differently. As McAfee told The Hollywood
08:10Reporter,
08:10"...I had a guy who was a pseudo-agent for me who reached out to the networks,
08:14and that pseudo-agent texts me back within like 10 minutes that there is
08:19zero interest from any of the TV networks."
08:22That kind of scorched-earth rejection would level most people, and it stuck with McAfee. He said,
08:28"...it put another chip on my shoulder. Do I hold any grudges against
08:32anybody in the past who didn't hire me? Absolutely."
08:35He decided to get himself an actual agent, which ultimately led to a series of multi-million
08:40dollar contracts, culminating with his 2023 deal with ESPN reportedly worth a hefty $85 million.
08:48Speaking about the executives who passed him over, McAfee promised his own form of
08:52retribution, declaring,
08:54"...it's my job to make them look very dumb in five to ten years."
08:59McAfee would be the first to concede that he's unapologetically outspoken,
09:04something that his fans like but that also garners occasional controversy.
09:08While he has brushed up against the latter on many occasions, he took it to a whole other
09:12level with some remarks he made about fellow NFL retiree Brett Favre.
09:16At the time, Favre was accused of engineering a scheme in which millions of dollars
09:21that had been earmarked as funds for families in need were shuttled to a
09:24volleyball facility utilized by his daughter. During an episode of The Pat McAfee Show,
09:29McAfee weighed in on news stories about Favre's shady side.
09:33Well, Brett shouldn't have f-----g stole from the people, Brett.
09:36Subsequently, AP reported that Favre sued McAfee for defamation. In his suit,
09:41Favre claimed that McAfee had accused Favre of, quote,
09:44"...stealing from poor people in Mississippi."
09:46In subsequent episodes of his show, McAfee detailed the bizarre experience of being
09:51sued by the legendary quarterback. Recalling how he'd been served by an
09:55apologetic process server, McAfee claimed that Favre's intention was, quote,
09:59"...to bankrupt me."
10:00Ultimately, though, Favre and McAfee buried the hatchet and settled the lawsuit.
10:06While McAfee is best known for his near-decade in the NFL, he's also passionate about soccer.
10:12That came into play when he happened upon a televised broadcast of the soccer tournament.
10:16McAfee became so enamored that he put together his own team and entered it into the 2024
10:21tournament. McAfee then announced that he'd be playing on that team. Not surprisingly,
10:26McAfee's fans were chomping at the bit to watch him in action on the soccer pitch,
10:31to say nothing of seeing him face off with fellow NFL retiree
10:34J.J. Watt, part owner of Britain's Burnley FC soccer team. Sadly, that matchup never came to
10:41be, with McAfee revealing that he was out of commission due to a hip flexor that was either
10:46strained or full-on torn. McAfee announced the sad news of his injury via a tongue-in-cheek
10:51social media post, masquerading as a news report. Citing a source, McAfee tweeted about his injury
10:57occurring during a kick while playing Burnley FC that, quote, "...missed the net by 40-50 yards."
11:03McAfee continued, writing,
11:05"...the source would go on to say,
11:07Pat was unable to stand up from the toilet this morning without some rather excruciating pain.
11:12This is what 37 years old looks like for a guy who hasn't run in a few decades."