When Pat McAfee joined WWE’s SmackDown commentary team in 2021, the opportunity was a “dream come true” for the former NFL punter turned sports-media personality. WWE had been a long-standing ambition for McAfee, and the assignment gave him a regular place on one of the company’s biggest weekly shows.

His WWE run quickly became bigger than a commentary job. McAfee had already faced Adam Cole at NXT TakeOver XXX in 2020, and he later beat Austin Theory at WrestleMania 38. By WrestleMania 42, he was standing beside Randy Orton for Orton’s Undisputed WWE Championship match against Cody Rhodes, with his own future in the company at stake.

McAfee had vowed to leave WWE for good if Orton lost. The match was anything but a quiet farewell. Rhodes hit McAfee with a Cross Rhodes before the bell, and Jelly Roll later put him through the announce table with an elbow drop. McAfee was taken away on a stretcher but returned in a referee shirt and neck brace, trying to count a three-count for Orton after he covered Rhodes. Rhodes kicked out, and Orton then dropped McAfee with an RKO.

Rhodes won, Orton lost, and McAfee kept his word. He later said his time in wrestling was over. When a fan recently asked whether he might return next year, McAfee doubled down, saying he had promised he would “never ever” be seen on WWE television again. Only hours later, ESPN announced that McAfee would be joining Jason Kelce, Marcus Spears and Jason McCourty on Monday Night Countdown for the 2026 NFL season.

“Monday Night Countdown returns as the two-hour Monday Night Football pregame show (6-8 p.m., ESPN), and for the first time, will be available on NFL Network this season,” the press release read. “Host Scott van Pelt is back alongside returning analysts [Jason] Kelce and Marcus Spears, with new additions Pat McAfee and Jason McCourty. Additionally, [Kurt] Warner will periodically join Monday Night Countdown on-site for select segments throughout the season.”

McAfee’s first Monday Night Countdown appearance is scheduled for September 14, when ESPN’s pregame show broadcasts from GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium before the Denver Broncos visit the Kansas City Chiefs in the opening game of the 2026 Monday Night Football season. The show will air from 6 to 8 p.m. ET, leading into kickoff at 8:15 p.m. ET.

The Kansas City stop will also give McAfee a full Monday on ESPN’s on-site NFL coverage. The Pat McAfee Show is scheduled to air from the game city before NFL Live and Monday Night Countdown lead viewers into Broncos-Chiefs.

Being an analyst on Monday’s pregame show on top of his existing roles with the network will give him the perfect leverage for that new deal. As for ESPN, their decision had very straightforward reasoning:

“The show’s core four former NFL players – Kelce, Spears, McCourty and McAfee – bring a combined 43 NFL seasons, two Super Bowl championships, nine Pro Bowl selections and seven First-Team All-Pro honors,” the press release added. “Together, they pair championship pedigrees and decorated playing careers with distinct personalities and insightful analysis. McAfee’s new role expands his prominent presence across ESPN, where he hosts The Pat McAfee Show and serves as an analyst on College GameDay Built by The Home Depot.”

But before the role went to McAfee, he first had to say goodbye to something he had been a part of for almost a decade – wrestling. And what happened at WrestleMania 42 back in April was the perfect backdrop for this transition. There is also a business angle behind the expanded role.

In June, The Athletic reported that ESPN and McAfee were negotiating an extension that could pay him more than $60 million per year, with an expanded NFL role among the possibilities. The deal had not been finalized at the time of that report, so the figure should be treated as a reported negotiating target rather than McAfee’s confirmed salary.

The expanded NFL role also arrives during a landmark season for ESPN. The network’s 2026-27 NFL schedule will end with Super Bowl LXI on February 14, 2027, from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. It will be ESPN’s first Super Bowl telecast, with ABC also carrying the game.

ESPN has not announced McAfee’s specific role for Super Bowl week or the game-day broadcast. Still, a regular place on Monday Night Countdown gives him a larger platform during the network’s build-up to its first Super Bowl, and McAfee himself has described the season as a journey toward the event in Los Angeles.

That reported negotiation makes the Monday Night Countdown. The network is giving more NFL real estate to one of the personalities it has already invested heavily in. The new role also comes as Jason McCourty joins the desk, replacing Ryan Clark, who departed ESPN earlier this year.

McAfee’s football background is the obvious part of the equation, but his appeal to ESPN has never been limited to his playing résumé. He spent eight seasons as the Indianapolis Colts’ punter before retiring in 2017 and then built his own media operation around the personality that eventually became The Pat McAfee Show. ESPN brought that show into its ecosystem in 2023, and his presence has continued to spread across the network.

There is a small bit of crossover in the new lineup, too. Kelce will have another ESPN/NFL Network assignment during the season, joining play-by-play announcer Dave Pasch and Kurt Warner for four NFL Network games. That group will call two London games, the Steelers-Saints matchup in Paris and a Week 16 game that is yet to be determined.

But wrestling’s a never-say-never sport, and McAfee had hinted at walking away from WWE once before this as well. Many were still skeptical because of his friendship with TKO Executive Chairman Ari Emmanuel. After all, it was Emmanuel who inserted McAfee into the WrestleMania 42 narrative to boost ticket sales and media coverage.

But when McAfee conducted a Q&A session through his Instagram stories, a fan asked whether it was in the cards for him to come back next year. McAfee shut it down with a video message.

“If Randy would’ve won, maybe,” McAfee said. “But I made a promise that I would never ever be seen on WWE television ever again. And Cody Rhodes won; he is the one. Wow! What a dog he turned out to be. Maybe he was the right one all along. … But no, wrestling fans can sleep soundly understanding that I will never be back over there.”

McAfee’s declaration did not entirely end speculation about a possible return. Before WrestleMania 42, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter had reported that WWE was considering a Backlash tag match pitting McAfee and Randy Orton against Cody Rhodes and Jelly Roll. The match would have extended the Rhodes-Orton programme beyond WrestleMania and kept McAfee in the storyline after his apparent farewell, although WWE never publicly announced it.

That plan did not materialize. Subsequent reports citing Dave Meltzer said McAfee opted out of the angle after WrestleMania, leading WWE to drop the proposed match. Those reports also connected the change to the negative fan response to McAfee’s role in the storyline, though neither WWE nor McAfee publicly confirmed the creative discussions or the reasons behind the decision.

Now with this chapter officially closed, Pat McAfee has his brand new Monday Night Countdown role to look forward to. With just a few more weeks till the regular season kicks off, it’ll be interesting to see how McAfee’s unfiltered energy impacts football Mondays.