By Rustin Dodd, Jayson Jenks and Zak Keefer
You probably know Pat McAfee as the former Colt turned podcaster/comedian/”SmackDown” commentator/media mogul. Before that, however, he was the punter who could say (and do) just about anything. To prove it, The Athletic called more than a dozen former teammates and coaches. Their stories are tremendous (and sometimes NSFW).
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D’Qwell Jackson, linebacker: I have some crazy funny stories.
Jack Mewhort, offensive lineman: There are a million of them.
Andy Studebaker, linebacker: The rookies are in town, first practice. The rookies are just nervous. They’re new. Everything is a fresh experience. And Pat dressed up like one of the trainers and started taping rookies’ ankles.
Vontae Davis, cornerback: He don’t take nothing too serious. That’s what I loved about him.
Studebacker: He was just doing this abysmal job. These tape jobs were horrible. He’s carrying on a conversation: “Hey, where’d you grow up? Where are you from?” And he’s taping their ankles and the looks on these guys’ faces was like, “What the freak is happening right now?”
Griff Whalen, wide receiver: I think it was after a Miami game. Just a random Twitter person was talking trash, and Pat was just replying: “Hey so-and-so, go eat shit.”
Colt Anderson, safety: He invited me over one day to his house. He’s just showing me around and then he brings me to his barn. Sure as shit, he’s got a full-on wrestling ring.
Erik Walden, linebacker: We’d get done with practice or meetings and we’d shoot dice. In the locker room. Right there as soon as you walk in. You’ve got an offensive lineman, you’ve got me, you’ve got T.Y. Hilton, Vontae Davis, Greg Toler, and you’ve got Pat in that mug, shooting dice, trying to get that 7 and that 11.
Studebaker: The dude has so much swagger, and he’s hilarious.
Walden: I’d always be like, “Dice on me shawty!” So it would get to his turn and he’d be like, “Dice on me shawty!” You’d hear Pat all the way at the end of the locker room: “Dice on me shawty!”
Davis: I just never met anybody as interesting as Pat.
Chuck Pagano, head coach: (General manager) Ryan (Grigson) and I were walking through the weight room, and Pat just comes up and introduced himself. He said, “I don’t know if you know me, coach, but my name’s Pat McAfee. I kick off and punt and, oh, also, I’m a really good placekicker. I’d love to compete for an opportunity.” I said, “Nice to meet you Pat. We do have Adam Vinatieri here, right?” He goes, “Yeah, yeah, but I really want the opportunity.”
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Kyle DeVan, offensive lineman: He thought he was better than Vinatieri!
Pagano: We all knew from Day 1 that Pat didn’t lack for confidence.
Marwan Maalouf, special teams coach: That’s one thing that stuck out to me: This guy can do just about anything.
Tom McMahon, special teams coach: He’s really good at onside kicks, so we always had some form of surprise onside for every game if the opponent gave it to us. … Coach Pagano’s only rule was we’re not doing it on the first rep because we don’t know how they’re going to line up. We get in the huddle, and I send him out there with a coverage call. Pat gets out there and the middle is wide open, so he sets the ball down on the tee and he sees it’s open as soon as he puts it down. He looks over at me. I give him the signal: “No,” because we ain’t running it.
Jim Irsay, owner: I’ll tell you what: He was never scared.
McMahon: He’s got that little pro wrestler walk, and he’s walking back to kick off, and he’s shaking his head up and down, like, “Fuck you, Tom.” He’s pissed. He’s pissed pissed. He gets right to the top of his approach and he looks over at me. This is during an NFL game, first kickoff. And he’s screaming at me, “You fucking p—y!” The best part is, Chuck is running down the sideline screaming at me, “You’re going to onside kick it, aren’t you?” So I’ve got him in my ear and I’ve got McAfee calling me a p—y.
Jackson: You could always turn to him for entertainment.
McMahon: It’s around Christmastime. The special teams meeting is starting and Pat and Vinny (Vinatieri) aren’t there. I’m looking at their chairs and I’m like, “God damn.” Because they should be the first guys there. Then I’m pissed. I holler out to the guys in the meeting room, “Where the fuck are Vinny and Pat?” Crickets. No one would say anything. All you hear coming down the hall is this creak creak, creak creak. It’s getting closer and closer to the meeting room. Creak creak. Creak creak. I always talked about horses and I grew up on a ranch. So they got me this little kid wooden pony and it’s painted in all these pretty colors. They come in down the steps with this fucker and put it right in front of me and say, “Get on!” Those two fucking assholes pushed me around the meeting room in front of all the guys.
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Walden: He’s a character. There was just some shit every day.
McMahon: Their original plan was they were going to purchase a miniature pony. A live pony. They were there, they were going to buy it, everything was good. And then they both started talking and were like, “How the fuck are we going to get it in the building?” So they went to an antique store instead.
Anthony Castonzo, offensive lineman: Pat has the amazing ability to be always on.
Jackson: He was my locker mate, and I could just see how much energy this dude had early in the morning. Sometimes he’d get on my freaking nerves! One time he was on 1000 and I’m giving him this look like I’m not wanting to talk. It’s early. He won’t stop. Finally, I just said, “Is this what I have to look forward to every morning?”
Mewhort: We’re in the training room, and it’s 6 o’clock in the morning. Guys are rehabbing or getting ready for the day. Pat being Pat, there would be various game shows.
Castonzo: It was exactly like “Deal or No Deal.” There were like 10 boxes and they had a variety of different amounts from 10 cents to 100 dollars.
Mewhort: Pat would pick up whatever spray bottle and use it as a microphone, and he would literally be the game show host.
Castonzo: He was born for it. People would go to the end and think they’re going to get the $100, and he would get this smug satisfaction and be like, “AND YOU GET” — and he’d pull out a penny and drop it in their hand — “ONE CENT!” Everybody would go nuts.
Coby Fleener, tight end: He has this ability to disarm people with humor.
Castonzo: We went on a Japan USO tour together. Pat attempts to learn the Japanese language. He knew that domo arigato meant “thank you very much” from the song “Mr. Roboto.” So he decided he was going to shorten it to just domo, so whenever somebody would do something for him, he would bow and say, “Domo.” We found out two or three days in that domo was essentially a greeting to say hello, so essentially every time he wanted to thank someone he was just bowing and saying, “Hello, hello.”
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Castonzo: We were at a nightclub in Japan. We had a few drinks. On the dance floor I kind of came to, and my first memory of the night is Pat with his hand touching my face and wiping my face and showing his hand to me and going, “YOU’RE BLEEDING.” There’s blood all over his hand. He and I were in the middle of a bunch of people hitting me with glow sticks chanting “Godzilla” in the middle of the dance floor. He helped me get to safety, I will say that.
Fleener: He was more excited about the joy he would bring people by making them laugh than he was about the fear of getting in trouble for getting the laugh.
Castonzo: The other thing was they told us to say you’re welcome is dōitashimashite. Pat was like, “How am I going to remember to say that?” They’re like, “It basically sounds like don’t touch your mustache.” So when he wanted to say you’re welcome to people, he would just be like, “Do not touch my mustache. Do not touch my mustache.”
Mewhort: When I was a rookie, I was on the field-goal unit. It was the first game of the season. During the week, I was so nervous that I was having this lapse; I kept forgetting to run out. We come off after one of the drives and Vinatieri is going out to kick a field goal. I forget to run out, of course, so we get a penalty and have to call a timeout. He ends up missing the first field goal, we get the penalty, we move back and he ends up making it.
McMahon: I get over to the bench, and I just rip his ass.
Mewhort: I’m so distraught about this that I go in the building the next day, and I’m asking the older guys, “What do I do?” I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to go in there and apologize to Vinatieri.” I go in there and they’re watching film. I crack the door and everybody looks at me. I say, “Hey, you guys, I just want to apologize. I’m really sorry. I know special teams is a huge part of the game.” I go on this huge speech, hat in hand. I’m so distraught. There’s a pause. I’m looking around. And Pat just looks at me and bursts into laughter.
Weslye Saunders, tight end: His sarcasm and seriousness, he walks that fine line. I had just been released by the Steelers and got signed by the Colts. The second week I was there, we played at Tennessee. Leading up to that point, Ryan Grigson had been shuffling the roster weekly — like, he was cutting guys at breakfast. It was big game at Tennessee, and I ended up making a big catch on a fourth-quarter drive. We ended up winning the game, and we get back into the locker room and everyone is cheering. Pat, in his funny way, he’s making his laps around the locker room. He comes to my locker and says, “Hey man, great job out there.” Then he says, “If you dropped that pass, Grigson would probably cut you when the plane landed.” He said it with the most serious face, and then he just kept it moving.
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Mewhort: He just gets away with stuff because of the type of guy he is.
Jeff Gorman, team media: He got Anthony Castonzo so mad in the Colts’ locker room that AC picked up a chair and broke it. In the locker room.
Castonzo: Pat and I were both very good at cornhole. Pat was the best one in the locker room at the time and he would rarely get beaten.
Mewhort: That’s a match made in hell. Anthony takes things very seriously. He’s overly competitive, to the point that I’m pretty sure he’s ended friendship before over cornhole. Pat’s the opposite, and Pat’s good at everything.
Castonzo: Pat had this confidence like, “Oh yeah, I’ll just throw these bags and no one’s going to beat me.” I felt like I had broken that. And then when he freaking beat me at the end, it was like, “Ah shit, now I have to deal with this some more.”
Gorman: We thought the big guy would throw more shit. McAfee just buried him. We had to run into the showers. We ran for cover. It was like being in a movie.
Fleener: You may recall what is largely called the worst play in NFL history.
Whalen: Colt Anderson and myself were just totally getting trashed for being complete boneheads. But I don’t think either one of us wanted to throw anybody else under the bus, coaches included. So we just didn’t say anything.
Fleener: It was Pat who went to the media and said, “No, no, no. Everybody else is being silent about this, but this is not Griff’s fault.”
Irsay: He was such a great teammate.
Jackson: Andrew Luck’s ass.
Pagano: Who can forget that? He thought he was only getting a picture of Vinny, but in the background, of course, there’s Andrew, butt naked, fresh out of the shower.
Studebaker: I’d never seen him more nervous in my life. That was like the ultimate sin … I think he even got fined by the GM, but that’s the thing, he was willing to take the lump. He was like: “I screwed up; I’m mortal. I’m gonna pay the fine. But I’m not gonna change who I am.”
Pagano: Thank God the towel was where the towel was.
Studebaker: He swam in the creek in Indianapolis
DeVan: I don’t know how much he remembered from the actual swimming part.
Jackson: The mishap in the canal.
DeVan: I was out with him that night, I think it was our bye week (in 2010). I just remember I had gone home, but after his little swim, he was walking with or without clothes, looking for a payphone. He was trying to call people to get a ride home. People probably thought he was a lunatic.
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Indianapolis Star: After stumbling upon a shirtless McAfee in a parking lot, the cops asked him why he was wet. “It was raining,” he replied. They asked him where his shirt was. “In the water,” he replied. They asked him how much he had to drink. “A lot ’cause I’m drunk,” he replied.
Irsay: I had him in my office the next day, and I can still see him sitting there.
DeVan: I remember seeing it on the news the next day and thinking, “Man, he had a rough night.”
Irsay: He was very remorseful. I said, “Look, you’re gonna be fine, we’re behind you. You just have to realize that what happened cannot happen again.” He was a great young man who had one too many cocktails. Or two too many. Or three.
Jackson: He just owned all that stuff, and guys in the locker room respected him for that.
Irsay: After that, he really started to take his career seriously.
McMahon: If practice was at 11, McAfee is out on the field at 10, 10:15, and he’d be punting. He probably punts 100 balls before anyone gets out there. He’s bombing away. My office was right next to the practice field. The best days were when I’d start to hear him screaming, “Fuuuuuuck. Shiiiiiiiit.” He’d start to talk to himself. He was just pissed, and you could hear him through the windows. Pagano’s office was two doors down but on the same side of the building. The first time he heard it, he comes in and goes, “What the fuck’s wrong with Pat?” I go,” Nothing’s wrong with Pat.” He goes, “Can you hear him? Everyone can hear him in the building!”
Anderson: The way he attacks life, he’s going to go all-in.
Studebaker: I think it was New Year’s Eve in 2015, about to be 2016. He did this stand-up show and a bunch of teammates went. And that was the moment where I’m like, “Pat’s funny.” But this dude is an entertainer. He’s not just a funny guy.
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Joe Reitz, offensive lineman: I remember talking to him one time and he basically said, “Someday I’d like to be like Howard Stern.”
Mewhort: It’s been cool to see him convert his locker room antics into this.
Whalen: He’s just born to be an entertainer.
McMahon: He’s just different than any guy I’ve been around.