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The reference Pat McAfee made during the Syracuse-NC State broadcast should be enough to earn him the MNF job
The revolving door that is the Monday Night Football color commentator job appears destined to revolve again at the conclusion of this NFL season. The Jason Witten experiment was short-lived, to say the least, and the Booger McFarland experiment might last the same amount of time. If we could, we'd like to offer a very simple solution for ESPN, one that's easy for all parties involved: just give it to Pat McAfee.
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McAfee, who spent eight seasons as the punter for the Indianapolis Colts, has become quite the media personality since retiring from the league in 2016. He started at Barstool Sports where he showed enough to earn a look from FOX Sports to be a color commentator on a few games. His broadcasting debut was a college game between Baylor and Texas Tech, and he immediately moved up to the big time a month later, calling an NFL game between the the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. That's when he truly shined:
Obviously, McAfee's style is not for everyone, but judging by his social media following, the younger crowd loves it. ESPN took notice, even allowing McAfee to audition for the MNF job, but the network decided to stick with Booger, who continues to get shredded every Monday night on Twitter.
ESPN did end up hiring McAfee for another job in July, the color analyst job for Thursday Night College Football. McAfee was teamed up with another former Indianapolis Colt, Matt Hasselbeck, and play-by-play man Adam Amin, who is one of the more underrated broadcasters there is. So far the trio has been dynamite, but with the NFL hijacking Thursday night, their strong chemistry has gone somewhat unnoticed.
McAfee tries to change that each week with his unique style of calling games, and we couldn't help but tip our caps to one of his best lines of the season from Thursday night's matchup between Syracuse and NC State. Late in the third quarter, with Syracuse trailing 13-0, NC State was trying to put the game out of reach when the 'Cuse defense appeared to make a huge stop near the end zone on third down. But the defensive stand was spoiled by cornerback Antwan Cordy, who got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for jawing with the receiver he had just tightly covered. This provided McAfee with an opportunity to make one of the more hilarious and topical references you'll ever hear from a color analyst:
For those who don't get it (have you been living under a rock?), the Bagel Boss is that tiny dude who flipped out in a Long Island bagel store and immediately went viral thanks to whoever was filming. His rant was about how people seem to, um, look down on short people. The video, posted to facebook, wound up garnering nearly 1.5 million views.
Cordy, who stands at 5-foot-8, is not quite as short, but the shot of him yapping away and looking up at the receiver was very Bagel Boss-like, so McAfee's reference is pretty spot on. From here on out and short guys mouthing off in a sports game should always be referred to as a "Bagel Boss" situation.