The first public sign that something was up between Pat McAfee and Adam Schefter came on the March 11 episode of The Pat McAfee Show.
Following a segment with Ian Rapoport, the former All-Pro punter heaped an unusual amount of praise on the NFL Network insider. And he also threw just enough shade elsewhere that it prompted a thread on the Pat McAfee subreddit with the title “Did they take a shot at Adam Schefter ???”
“Retweeting and reposting breaking news from teams while on-air with us. RapSheet, what a lad,” McAfee says in the clip. “I’m so thankful he was able to join us here. A very busy day. Not a lot of people were able to stop by.”
“Yeah, that was clutch. Especially because he was getting everything right,” producer/co-host Boston Connor replied. “That was a big part of yesterday.”
Knowing what we know now, it’s not too difficult to connect the dots.
On Thursday, Schefter joined The Pat McAfee Show, marking his first appearance on the program in exactly 100 days. Coincidentally or not, his return came just hours after The Atheltic’s Andrew Marchand published a detailed report regarding McAfee’s recent run at ESPN, including the news that he had “effectively banned” Schefter from appearing on his eponymous show in recent months.
According to Marchand, Schefter’s banishment resulted from the ESPN insider’s failure to appear on the March 10 episode of The Pat McAfee Show, which also marked the first day of the NFL’s legal tampering period. With Schefter busy on a free agency special that aired on ESPN2 (on the same day that an X outage caused chaos among news-breakers), McAfee turned to Rapoport for what marked just his third appearance on the show of 2025.
It wouldn’t be his last.
While Rapoport had previously maintained a regular presence on PMS, Schefter had seemingly become the show’s go-to NFL insider since it began its licensing deal with ESPN in 2023. Prior to March 10, Rapoport had appeared on The Pat McAfee Show just twice in 2025, with both appearances coming at the NFL Draft Scouting Combine the previous week. Both segments featuring Rapoport were relatively short and primarily focused on his viral altercation with fellow insider Jordan Schultz. Before the 2025 combine, his most recent PMS appearance had come on April 24, 2024.
Dating back to March 10, however, Rapoport has appeared on PMS 17 times, while Schefter hadn’t appeared on the program since March 4 — his only appearance since also being present for McAfee’s controversial comments regarding an unfounded rumor involving a 19-year-old Ole Miss freshman’s sex life — before Thursday’s return. To put that more-than-three-month absence in context, Schefter had appeared on PMS 10 times through the first two months of 2025 until his alleged banishment.
While ESPN management would strongly prefer the two play nice and showcase Schefter as the premier NFL insider, McAfee had seemingly signaled a clear preference for Rapoport as his show’s go-to NFL insider in the last three months. It’s also worth noting Boston Connor’s dig about “getting everything right,” which appeared to be a reference to Schefter’s reporting regarding the Carolina Panthers being on the verge of signing free-agent defensive lineman Milton Williams, who ultimately signed with the New England Patriots.
“He signed, didn’t he?” McAfee asked Rapoport of Williams during the March 10 episode.
“He has not signed,” Rapoport replied as McAfee and his crew reacted with shock.
As McAfee and A.J. Hawk both noted that Schefter had reported otherwise, Rapoport insisted that the deal between Williams and the Panthers hadn’t been finalized.
“Oh! Source-off! Source-off!” McAfree shouted excitedly as he and his crew naturally broke out into a song and dance.
Much bigger issues than a “source-off” were seemingly already brewing.
As for Schefter’s appearance on Thursday, it was pretty boilerplate stuff, with McAfee and his crew interviewing the insider about the NFL’s latest happenings. But as the conversation came to a close, the WWE Raw announcer jokingly referred to Schefter as the “banned man” before telling him, “Tell Seth we know,” in an apparent reference to a veteran ESPN executive.
In other words, this doesn’t appear to be a story that’s over just yet. In some ways, it might just be getting started.