Pat McAfee had a perfect chance to win the Super Bowl with the Buccaneers when former head coach Bruce Arians wanted him back for the 2020 season. But one condition stopped him from returning to the field.
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“You know, we had COVID players,” former Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians said on the Not Just Football podcast. “You could add COVID players. I said, okay, I called Pat. I said, hey man, can you kick? He said, yeah. I said, ‘Well, I might sign you as my COVID kicker. You just get in shape, and you don’t have to come down here. If our guy gets COVID, we’ll fly you in for the game.’ He’s like, ‘Do I got to pass the drug test? I said, ‘Yeah, I think.’
“I’m out,” Arians recalled McAfee saying.
Before the Buccaneers’ Week 15 game against the Falcons in 2020, kicker Ryan Succop, punter Bradley Pinion and long snapper Zach Triner were all placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, leaving Tampa Bay without its three regular special teams starters.
However, all three were taken off the list not long after, and they didn’t miss any games. But the Buccaneers added more depth just in case: kicker Greg Joseph was activated from the practice squad, and punter Dustin Colquitt and long snapper Garrison Sanborn were signed.
Eventually, Arians didn’t need McAfee anymore. However, having coached him as interim head coach of the Indianapolis Colts in 2012, Arians thought of still asking.
This is not the first time this story has been told. Arians spoke about this opportunity with The Athletic, and claimed McAfee agreed. But it was the drug test that put him off.
“He (McAfee) said, ‘I gotta pass a drug test?’ I said, ‘Yep.’ ‘Aw f*ck, I’m out.”
This was once in a lifetime chance for him. Pat McAfee played for the Indianapolis Colts from 2009 to 2016 before walking away from football. He made it to the Super Bowl in his rookie season, but the Colts lost to the New Orleans Saints. Had things worked out in a different way for McAfee and Arians’ reunion, McAfee could have had a Super Bowl ring.
“Actually, there is a funny story that’ll come out in a book someday that if I was worse with the way I handled COVID, I’d probably have a Super Bowl ring right now,” Pat McAfee said on his Monday simulcast on Mad Dog Radio and YouTube in 2021. “If I had the antibodies, I potentially would’ve come back potentially for a team one week.”
McAfee does have a special memory from the Super Bowl game he played: he kicked off the Colts, which he described as a tense experience.
“I act like I’m putting the ball back down again, skycam goes flying out. I’m like, ‘Oh, this is awesome,'” McAfee said in 2020. “So I take my steps back, and that’s the first time in my life I really like took it in the moment. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m kicking off the Super Bowl right now.’
“… I barely even make contact with the ball. It gets off, obviously; there’s an incredible photo that my mom and dad have at the house, of me kicking it off. And it wasn’t the best kickoff in the history of the Super Bowl, but it wasn’t the worst kickoff in the history of the Super Bowl. And that, my friends, is damn good news.”
Even though his return to the NFL wasn’t possible, he did make a solid run in his career beyond it. After retiring from the NFL, Pat McAfee quickly started a new chapter in sports media. He launched The Pat McAfee Show, went on to feature on ESPN programming, and has now become one of the biggest figures in football media.
Not only is he a mainstay on College GameDay (where his interactions with Nick Saban make for some really funny moments), but he also secured a spot on Monday Night Countdown.
Per The Athletic, McAfee’s team was also negotiating a new contract with ESPN, which will reportedly earn him more than $60 million per year.
His energetic personality and easy way of talking with fans helped him stand out from traditional sports analysts.