Ryan Leaf accuses Pat McAfee of being ‘high 80% of the time’ on his show

Pat McAfee generated quite the buzz by getting buzzed during Friday’s episode of The Pat McAfee Show.

More accurately, the former All-Pro-punter-turned-ESPN personality was seemingly hammered.

We didn’t cover McAfee’s antics at the time because they seemed pretty academic. McAfee was in Dublin to celebrate the start of the 2024 college football season. His show was airing live from a pub. It would have been a bigger story if Guinness hadn’t been one of PMS‘ main characters on a Friday afternoon.

That, however, wasn’t the case elsewhere as others marveled at the sight of one of ESPN’s tentpole personalities seemingly getting wasted on air. And after NFL quarterbacks coach Quincy Avery took issue with the 37-year-old’s behavior, former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf weighed in with an accusation of his own.

“$85 million bro,” Leaf wrote in a reply on X, “hell, he’s high 80% of the time on his tv show it’s said!!”

Presumably, Leaf is talking about marijuana, as McAfee’s affinity for the devil’s lettuce has been well-established. Even as recently as Friday, the former Indianapolis Colt revealed he and A.J. Hawk had each taken approximately 100mg of edibles on the international flight to Dublin.

Still, even as an open marijuana user — is that even a thing in 2024? — the idea of being high for 80 percent of your shows seems extreme. Sure, McAfee has previously talked about marijuana playing an integral role in his show’s process, and anyone taking 100mg on a single plane ride clearly isn’t a lightweight. But that’s different from being high for every four out of five episodes you host.

Leaf pinned the accusation on “it’s said,” so perhaps this is already public information and not even a claim McAfee would take offense to. For what it’s worth, I watched multiple interviews of the West Virginia product discussing his weed use, and while it’s clear, he’s a fan — again, it’s 2024 — I couldn’t find anything where he said he’s practically always high while hosting his show.

Still, as odd as it might be for an ESPN host to be under the influence on the air regularly, it was perhaps just as strange to see Leaf casually throw out such an accusation without any evidence.

To that end, it’s worth noting Leaf’s ongoing feud with McAfee’s other program, College GameDay, which the former No. 2 overall pick has feuded with dating back to last year’s kerfuffle regarding his alma mater, Washington State. Just last week, Leaf told OutKick’s Hot Mic show that his criticism of McAfee and Kirk Herbstreit cost him work at ESPN, where he had called games as an analyst.

“Herbstreit and McAfee are the most, you know, overly sensitive people I’ve ever met for guys who live in this high platform. They get criticized all the time, but boy, God, are they overly sensitive. Narcissists,” Leaf said.

Suffice it to say that Leaf clearly doesn’t have the highest opinion of McAfee, and based on last year’s Wazzu feud, the feelings appear to be mutual. As such, it’s not necessarily surprising that the former Cougars quarterback would attempt to paint the ESPN star in a negative light, even if—or perhaps especially because—it’s regarding an activity McAfee has fully embraced.

[Ryan Leaf on X]