Pat McAfee is a HUGE fan of Ohio State national championship winning quarterback Will Howard. And it’s now caught the attention of NFL Hall of Famer and current Colorado assistant coach Warren Sapp.
There’s a lot to love about Howard. After a great career at Kansas State, he transferred to Ohio State as the school went all-in to try to win a national championship last season. And Howard was a massive part of their success, especially in the playoff when the Buckeyes went on an unprecedented run to win the title coming through the first ever 12-team playoff.
But when it comes to Will Howard’s NFL Draft stock, Pat McAfee is definitely an outlier in hyping him up as one of the top prospects in this year’s draft. In fact, McAfee has been so vivacious in his praise of Howard ever since the end of the college football season, that he felt the need to say he is not being paid to promote him.
That promotion continued at the NFL Draft Scouting Combine where McAfee said that the former Buckeye quarterback was spotted throwing the ball outside in a hotel parking lot at 11 p.m. Because when you look up “gamer” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Will Howard.
And that’s where Warren Sapp drew the line.
Sapp was on his podcast on Thee Pregame Network from Taipei, Taiwan on Thursday. He began by talking about players getting picked apart at the NFL Combine as “the most diabolical thing you can go into” like we just saw with his Colorado quarterback, Shedeur Sanders. And then that’s when Sapp alleged that McAfee was telling lies regarding his story about Howard throwing in the parking lot at night in Indianapolis.
“They want to make a big stink about Shedeur not throwing. But what about the running back not running? What are we talking about here?” the Hall of Fame defensive tackle said. “And then you hear these wild stories about the quarterback from Ohio State out at the parking lot, throwing the ball. Stop it. Just stop it. Stop the fallacy. Ain’t nobody out at 11 o’clock throwing no ball in Indianapolis. It’s freezing cold. We’ve all been there in the beginning of February. Ain’t no throwing it outside in no parking lot, Pat McAfee. Stop the lies. C’mon. ‘Well my sources told me, 11 o’clock at night.‘ C’mon man, just stop. Just stop. Just stop. I’ve had enough.”
In complete fairness to McAfee, Howard could very well have been throwing in a parking lot at almost midnight. It’s not like Sapp has any sources of his own here, he’s just speculating from his own personal experience that it’s cold in Indianapolis in February. And if there’s one person who’s going to have that story legitimately, it’s going to be Pat McAfee, who has been championing Will Howard consistently for the last two months.
What it really says is Sapp’s frustration that his quarterback, a consensus Top 5 pick, is getting all kinds of scrutiny and knocks for anything and everything while one of the most prominent sports media personalities is giving one of his fellow draftees the Uncle Rico treatment.
On that front, Warren Sapp also had some words regarding Josina Anderson’s reporting that an NFL coach was dissing Shedeur Sanders at the combine.
“And then we come out, a quarterback coach who’s not a decision maker, wants to make that call about our quarterback? I’ve been working for the last 48 hours to get his name. If I get his name, oh buddy we’re going to do a deep dive into his life. He’s going to wish he never did that. If you’re not a decision maker, shut up. Shut up. Shut up,” Sapp proclaimed.
Between encounters with the NFL’s middle management and now this shot across the bow from Sapp, it was an eventful combine for Pat McAfee. But at least Sapp didn’t go as far as Keith Olbermann did in calling for him to get fired as the former All-Pro punter is also feuding with the entire country of Canada.