Just one day after Pat McAfee announced that Aaron Rodgers wouldn't be returning to his eponymous ESPN show following the Jimmy Kimmel drama, the New York Jets quarterback has returned.
Rodgers made an appearance on the Thursday, January 11 edition of The Pat McAfee Show, in which he spoke about Bill Belichick's departure from the New England Patriots after 24 years. He said that he was "in the woods" and that his "offseason has begun." It was a shorter appearance than is typical of Rodgers, and he didn't reference the recent controversy surrounding his comments about Jimmy Kimmel or Jeffrey Epstein.
Last week, Rodgers expressed his excitement for the then soon-to-be-released list of 150 people mentioned in a lawsuit pertaining to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. "A lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, are really hoping that it doesn’t happen,” said Rodgers on the show. “I’ll tell you what, if that list comes out I definitely will be popping some sort of bottle.”
Kimmel blasted Rodgers' false insinuation that he would be named in the documents, which have since been unsealed and include no mention of the late-night host. He threatened the NFL star with legal action and described him as "hamster-brained."
Rodgers later suggested that he wasn't trying to accuse Kimmel of being a pedophile. "I totally understand how serious an allegation of pedophilia would be. So [for] him to be upset about that, I get it," he said on Tuesday. "I'm not stupid enough—even though you think I'm an idiot, and you've made a lot of comments about my intelligence—but I'm not stupid enough to accuse you of that with absolutely zero evidence, concrete evidence. That's ridiculous."
On Wednesday, McAfee said that Rodgers wouldn't appear on the show for the rest of the NFL season. "So Aaron Rodgers Tuesdays season four is done," McAfee said while he and his crew applauded. "There are going to be a lot of people who are happy with that, myself included. The way it ended, it got real loud, and I'm happy that is not going to be my mentions going forward, which is great news."
