SportsCenter legend unloads on ESPN over Pat McAfee: 'Just call it Monday Night McAfee'

It appears that even amid his meteoric rise in the sports media industry, for some, there is such a thing as too much Pat McAfee. The former NFL player-turned-media personality is known for creating The Pat McAfee Show and running with it, which began when he hosted it at Barstool Sports; since then, he's become a juggernaut and a focal point of ESPN's coverage. McAfee has appeared on everything from Thursday Night Football and Monday Night Football to College GameDay and various shows before The Pat McAfee Show moved to ESPN in 2023.

While McAfee has become a staple at ESPN, the former Indianapolis Colts punter's role with the company is reportedly expanding even more. The Athletic's Andrew Marchand reported that, in addition to becoming a panelist on ESPN's Monday Night Countdown, McAfee would also host an alternate telecast on weeks when Peyton and Eli Manning's alt-cast isn't on.

The added roles for McAfee were met with a mixture of amazement, excitement and some jokes about how much McAfee can be featured on ESPN. However, longtime SportsCenter host Linda Cohn had some blunt words for how much McAfee is being put center stage on The Linda Cohn Show's livestream, as Awful Announcing detailed.

Notably, Cohn did praise McAfee and didn't point the issues at him specifically, but rather at her former employer.

"I admire it all, but admiring what Pat McAfee has accomplished doesn’t mean I believe he needs to be everywhere at every time," Cohn said. "Because, yeah, ESPN wants Pat McAfee to be everywhere at every time. How much Pat McAfee is enough Pat McAfee?! The answer apparently was more."

"So, let’s review your potential Monday during the NFL season, which is just a couple of weeks away," Cohn said. "Three hours of Pat’s daily show, The Pat McAfee Show, from the game site. Then, Pat joins Monday Night Countdown before the game. And then, on certain nights, potentially, his own alternative broadcast of Monday Night Football. At this point, let’s just call it ‘Monday Night McAfee.'"

Cohn also cited ESPN cutting off First Take's on-air tribute to ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen, who died Tuesday, and flipping to The Pat McAfee Show. She pointed out that McAfee addressed it on his show and explained that this isn't about "blaming" McAfee but rather about how something like that happens.

"You couldn’t script it any better; you couldn’t script it any worse," Cohn said. "Pat would later address it on his show, saying he had nothing to do with it. And that’s true. Pat had nothing to do with it. The network did, and that is exactly the point. This isn’t about blaming Pat McAfee. It’s about asking why an environment has been created where something like this actually happens, and Pat McAfee still ends up at the center of it anyway."

Obviously, given that Cohn spent 34 years as an anchor on SportsCenter, it's fair to say that her insight on ESPN as a whole carries some weight. But regardless of the understandable pushback from some on ESPN's plan for the upcoming NFL season, there's little reason to expect any last-minute pivots.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: SportsCenter legend unloads on ESPN over Pat McAfee: 'Just call it Monday Night McAfee'