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Pat McAfee clarifies his comment to Patriots owner Robert Kraft on ‘College GameDay’ broadcast
McAfee's comments were viewed as a hint about Bill Belichick's job security with the Patriots.
Former NFL punter and “College GameDay” panelist Pat McAfee raised plenty of eyebrows during ESPN’s broadcast ahead of Saturday’s Army-Navy Game at Gillette Stadium.
During an interview segment with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, McAfee appeared to address the elephant in the room with the 3-10 Patriots: Bill Belichick’s job security.
“We’d like to win,” Kraft noted when asked about New England’s hopes of regaining the label as a contender. “So, we want to do everything we can to get our team back so we can be winning again.”
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“I don’t envy your position, what’s about to happen,” McAfee said. “We all know. We don’t have to ask today.”
Kraft didn’t respond to McAfee, giving him a handshake as the interview wrapped with the panel.
As expected, McAfee’s comment to Kraft and the implied implication about Kraft’s looming decision with Belichick this offseason drew plenty of headlines over the weekend.
Speaking on Monday during his daily ESPN show, McAfee pushed back against the discourse surrounding his comments.
While Kraft and New England’s ownership will undoubtedly have to make several tough decisions this winter in hopes of rebuilding a broken roster, McAfee said that his comment shouldn’t be viewed as any sort of confirmation that Kraft plans to fire Belichick once the 2023 season wraps.
“At the end [of the interview], I think they said, ‘Anybody else have anything?’ And I’m like, ‘I do not envy your position,’ is what I said to [Kraft],” McAfee explained on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “I’m not going to ask the question. It’s not about that. We all know what I’m talking about. But I don’t envy your position.
“And everybody in New England — and I understand, I guess, from the New England perspective, why they did this — people were saying I ambushed Robert Kraft. I didn’t even ask a question. They said I ambushed him with that, and then we shook hands. They said, ‘Pat just told Robert Kraft that he’s going to fire Bill Belichick.’
“I did not say that at all. What I was talking about, for the first time in, like, 20 years, is he going to extend Bill Belichick? Is he going to move on from Bill Belichick? How about the quarterback position? What are you going to do? Like, I don’t envy his position at all. He’s the man who owned and operated the greatest dynasty in sports history. The most consistent dynasty. He even said it. He said, ‘Bill’s been with us for 24 years.’ … “So when I said, ‘I don’t envy your position,’ everybody in Boston was like, ‘He just told Robert Kraft he has to fire Bill.’
“I was like, yo, you said that. I was talking about all of the other — maybe that’s one of them; maybe that’s certainly one of the outcomes. Which leads me even more to say I don’t envy his position, because you heard what I just said about Bill Belichick. That’s how I feel about Bill Belichick.
“The internet just built a narrative really quickly about what I said. … I didn’t say Robert Kraft is firing Bill Belichick. Y’all are saying that. I was just saying I don’t envy what you have to do. After I listened to it back, my intent was that. It was nothing else. So I just would like to let everybody know that I was not disrespecting Robert Kraft. It was the complete opposite of that. It was, like, massive respect for everything, and you have a tough position right now.”
As expected, Belichick didn’t offer up much on Monday when asked on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” about McAfee’s comments or Kraft’s response.
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“Like you said, it’s week to week here this week against Kansas City,” Belichick said. “We’re gonna focus on everything we can do to go out and play our best game of the year against KC.”
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