Pat McAfee Sort Of Apologizes For Larry Nassar Tweet, Even Though No Apology Was Necessary

As OutKick reported on Sunday, sports media personality -- and soon-to-be ESPN host -- Pat McAfee ran afoul of the Twitter mob thanks to a tweet invoking Larry Nassar.

To reset the scene, one of McAfee's producers -- Evan Fox -- posted a picture of hideous old Michigan State football uniforms. Fox, a Michigan State alumnus, wrote: "I still can’t believe Michigan State thought it was ok to roll out these uniforms."

McAfee responded to the tweet by saying, "I think Nassar was in on the design team actually."

Of course, that set off a firestorm. "How could you invoke Larry Nassar when talking about something like football uniforms?!" the outraged mob screamed.

McAfee was making a joke and used Nassar to punctuate the point. But there's no room for context or nuance on the Internet in 2023.

As Pat McAfee usually does, he faced the criticism head-on by addressing it on his show on Monday.

As he usually does NOT do though, he sort of apologized. Though, it was one of those "sorry if you got offended" apologies rather than "I'm sorry I did it." So, that's still a positive. Still, any form of apology to the outrage mob only signals weakness.

Pat McAfee sort of apologized for a tweet including Larry Nassar, the disgraced former Michigan State doctor. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

In a tweet captioned with the phrase "It got loud on the Internet yesterday," McAfee posted his response from Monday's show.

"There is an all-out onslaught against me right now for simply linking one terrible thing from a school with the most terrible thing from the school ... talking sh*t to a friend," McAfee begins.

"I do apologize if some people took that in a different way and then spun it in their own narrative to offend a bunch of other people ... I was simply talking sh*t to my friend."

Pat McAfee sort of apologized for Larry Nassar tweet, but explains why he sent it in the first place

McAfee then goes on to point out that Michigan State let Larry Nassar abuse gymnasts for 14 years and says that some people want to silence him from bringing that up.

Then, he pivots and says that he did not consider deleting the tweet or apologizing.

"People 'you need to delete this and apologize.' I'm like 'uh ... why?' I'm talking shit to my friend about something that definitely happened at his school," McAfee said.

"We need to tell people that there's disgusting, horrible people in powerful positions. This isn't something that's just like 'hey, we can't talk about this,'" he continued.

Former NFL player and now ESPN host Pat McAfee speaks during his show. (Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)

He then "apologized" again, though he couched it very clearly with some sarcasm.

"I do apologize to everybody that just took my six word tweet and then said that I was disrespecting this and not thinking about the victims. What?! I think we're thinking about the victims ... by reminding people that this motherf***er had a lot of power at Michigan State for a long time while being a terrible human being.

"It was an eye-opener, though," McAfee concluded before the conversation shifted.

It appears that McAfee realizes that the ESPN deal is going to bring more eyeballs to him and, with that, a lot more scrutiny and criticism.

ESPN might not like McAfee's Nassar tweet, but wait until the executives hear his 'Global Boiling' opinions

Lest you think McAfee's "eye-opening" experience means he's going to change his show or the topics he discusses, he also decided to make fun of climate change on the same show.

That's a topic that ESPN is probably even more unhappy to hear him talk about than Larry Nassar. Left-leaning ESPN needs to push the global warming and "climate crisis" narrative or they're going to get booted from the cool kids club.

But Pat McAfee doesn't appear to care about that. And he shouldn't.

Pat McAfee took aim at the global warming -- now apparently "global boiling" -- activists and ESPN can't be too happy about that. (Photo by Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

He and his staff joke about shifting the language -- once again -- from global warming to global boiling.

I have to be honest: I did not know about the "global boiling" change. Perhaps that means I'm going to get cancelled, too. But I Googled "Global Boiling" and sure enough articles from the Washington Post, CBS News, The Guardian and others immediately popped up.

McAfee poked fun at this, as he should.

"The sun's real hot," McAfee sarcastically observes.

In the past two days, McAfee got the Twitter mob worked up over two separate issues.

And we all know how ESPN feels about being attacked by the Twitter mob.

I have no idea how the McAfee-ESPN relationship is going to play out.

But I, for one, am excited to watch.