Pat McAfee Roasts Bill Simmons For Failed Super Bowl Parlay Because He Needs More Drama In His Life
Pat McAfee made it a whole month without causing any conflict on his sports talk show. But now he’s back to his drama-loving ways.
In January, McAfee accused Norby Williamson of trying to sabotage "The Pat McAfee Show," causing widespread conflict throughout ESPN. Since then, McAfee has found a way to keep the content of his show strictly dedicated to entertaining sports analysis.
But that changed on Monday when he called out former ESPN personality Bill Simmons (no relation on my part).
McAfee was discussing how Simmons, who founded and has since sold "The Ringer," got roughly 8,000 people to bet on his Super Bowl LVIII parlay on FanDuel. Apparently, Simmons - and therefore his fans - did not cash in on that parlay and thus lost money.
McAfee used that as the starting point to ridicule Simmons on his show. He also added that he got roughly 250,000 people to follow his own parlay, a fact he worked into his roast (he didn’t mention if he won or not).
"I think Bill Simmons, who has it all figured out, I think he had like 8,000 people riding alongside him," McAfee said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. "That's a huge number that did not hit. That's really big. Really good, Bill. You still have it... Keep running your mouth, Bill."
The McAfee-Simmons Beef Started In January
McAfee woke up today and chose violence. But what exactly prompted this stern rebuke of one of the best sports journalists in the industry?
Back in mid-January, Simmons was holding a discussion on his podcast, "The Bill Simmons Podcast" (do these guys ever get creative with show names?). Towards the end of one episode, Simmons starts mocking McAfee for coming up with a new way to discuss NFL headlines that he found less than impressive.
"McAfee has created a new version of how to do this," Simmons said. "He starts the show, and then he’ll be like, ‘Cowboys, bro, I don’t know man. I don’t know. What’s going on there, bro?’ And then it cuts to his three people, and they’re like, ‘I don’t know.’ And then it will go back to him, and he’s like, ‘not good, bro. Not good. Keep an eye on that, bro."
Shots fired, though rather mildly. The most interesting part is why McAfee waited nearly a full month to respond.
But as we mentioned above, Simmons’ barb came not too long after the Norby Williamson drama, so McAfee likely wanted to put any return on hold. Maybe he's going through a drama withdrawal and wanted to get some back in his life (he's been clean for a month after all). Or, as Awful Announcing pointed out, maybe he just heard about Simmons’ comments recently.
Regardless, we’ve got a potentially feisty beef coming between two guys who know how to stir the pot. This could be a wild ride.