Pat McAfee lets Aaron Rodgers spout more garbage on today's show

After a week of controversy, New York Jets signal-caller Aaron Rodgers was welcomed back to The Pat McAfee Show with applause and a standing ovation from its host. (To be fair, McAfee is always standing, though at least he’s wearing sleeves today.)

What followed was more of the same — a wild rant about the efficacy of COVID vaccinations, calling Dr. Anthony Fauci one of the biggest purveyors of misinformation, and claiming that many of the conspiracy theories that Rodgers ascribes to have turned out to be true.

McAfee promised to “check” Rodgers on his misinformation — before asking the 40-year-old conspiracy theorist to tell him what to check him on. But every time McAfee said, “I’m gonna have to check you on that,” it was like a starting gun for Rodgers to start cramming as much BS as he could in before the host tried to cut him off.

When the ex-punter “checked” Rodgers’ claims about Dr. Fauci and COVID vaccines — no doubt because someone was telling him to into his earpiece — Rodgers went on and on about studies by what he deemed as reputable scientists (read: Those that support his viewpoint) but failed to, ya know, cite a single study. He even accused “them” — whoever they are — of trying to censor anti-vaxxer Alex Berenson, and then went on and on about anti-malaria drugs and Dr. Fauci’s financial stake in the COVID vaccines.

“Your use of efficacy today really showcased your intelligence,” McAfee told his guest, who is paid to make his weekly appearance on the program. McAfee added that Rodgers had done probably “more research than anyone else on earth” when it comes to COVID.

Hey, I use the term “string theory” all the time, I couldn’t begin to explain to you what that means for astrophysics. And while Rodgers may use a few of the buzzwords of the scientific community, he doesn’t have the educational foundation to understand what he’s reading, other than to say it sounds good and fits in with his worldview.

Rodgers invited McAfee and the audience to “fact check me!” several times, and it took me all of 30 seconds to find out that his claims were untrue. First, after the QB accused the mysterious “they” of closing California beaches and “locking everyone up” during the pandemic when he said everyone knows that Vitamin D and C are effective in treating colds.

Here’s where I point out that, despite the decades-long campaign by Big Vitamin, while Vitamin D has been shown to have some benefit during a cold to people with low levels of vitamin D, there was no demonstrable efficacy in people with normal Vitamin D levels. Vitamin C is not effective in treating colds at all.

I also fact-checked Rodgers’ claim about Dr. Fauci having a financial stake in COVID-19 vaccines, which seems like a problem for someone serving in a governmental, policy-making decision. Surprise! Turns out Rodgers didn’t quite have all the facts on that claim, either. The first thing that came up when I fired up the ole Google machine was this blurb from factcheck.org:

“Documents show that Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins received 58 royalty payments from 2010 to 2021 for their research. Only three of the payments came in 2020 or 2021; the rest were made prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But social media posts falsely claimed all the payments were “for allowing companies to use their COVID-19 vaccines.”

…The royalties are for scientific research and other innovations by NIH institutes and centers that were licensed for use by third parties, such as pharmaceutical companies. Some of the money goes back into research, but a portion is shared with the government workers who invented the patented or licensed technology.”

The QB then blamed the media for not understanding his comments — which we all know is his go-to play — but his explanation for what he was trying to say about late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and Jeffrey Epstein was entirely unintelligible.

Rogers tried to gaslight the audience into believing his brand-new claim that he never called Jimmy Kimmel a pedophile. Instead, Ayahuasca Aaron verbally attacked ESPN PR chief Mike Foss, who characterized Rodgers’ Kimmel “joke” as being “dumb and factually incorrect.” That didn’t sit well with ol’ Aaron. He’s really sensitive about something he spews being called dumb.

In perhaps the most revealing segment, Rodgers insisted several times that he “doesn’t care” what Kimmel says about him. But then, he brought up the late-night host accusing him of having a “JuCo education” three separate times, all while insisting that he is a very intelligent person. And, no matter what McAfee’s intentions were, he once again sat there and cheered Rodgers on throughout the entire unhinged rambling, while AJ Hawk sat there silently with his customary dumb look on his face. (What would you say you do here?)

There is a lot more I could say about Rodgers’ ignorance and McAfee’s enabling, but mostly I’m just sad that this is the kind of show getting $85 million and that, as evidenced by the men screaming at me on social media, it appeals to so many people. Rodgers is an easily led, not-very-bright man who sees himself as the smartest man in every room and is desperate for everyone to see him as such.

If ESPN expected McAfee to clean up his mess this week, that mission failed spectacularly. Rodgers didn’t exactly walk back his comments on Kimmel in a way that earthlings could understand and, absent accusing an innocent person of pedophilia, Rodgers’ misinformation was arguably the worst it’s been to date.

But Rodgers is never going to come around to understanding what he did wrong, or what he says that is wrong. Because admitting he’s wrong would debunk his greatest conspiracy theory of all: That Aaron Rodgers is the last of the deep thinkers, and that anyone who criticizes him isn’t a thinking person. What Rodgers doesn’t know is that he proves that conspiracy theory wrong every time he opens his mouth.