Pat McAfee explains why Ninja’s NFL kicker comments were “ignorant”
YouTube/ The Pat McAfee Show/NinjaFormer NFL pro Pat McAfee brought up streaming sensation Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins’ comments about football kickers on his podcast, and explained why the ex-Mixer star was in the wrong.
UPDATE – June 25 at 1:30 PM
It would seem like McAfee’s comments have had an effect on the streaming superstar. Since posting our story, Ninja has replied saying that the former NFL pro’s remarks have “opened his eyes.”
I watched that video, and that analogy actually opened my eyes >
— Ninja (@Ninja) June 24, 2020
Original story below:
In 2019, Ninja made some comments about NFL kickers, and how he didn’t understand how teams have players who miss kicks. The controversial remarks generated a firestorm of backlash that hasn’t died down even months after the fact.
On his podcast, McAfee was talking about golf, and how even the smallest mistake in hitting the ball could lead to a miss when he pivoted to Blevins’ comments.
“This is just like the Ninja situation,” he remarked. “Ninja bashed kicks like months ago. And he and I had an interaction. I followed him and he followed me. And then it got recycled on the internet.”
After briefly praising the internet star for his $30 million payday from Mixer and how he was a “savvy businessman,” he reiterated that the comments on kickers was an “ignorant statement.”
“It would be like if Ninja only had a kill if he shot someone directly between the eyes,” McAfee explained. “So, like, if you shot someone in the shoulder or heart or something like that, it wouldn’t be a kill.”
According to the former NFL pro, kicking a football is just like golf in that if you’re off by an inch, it’s a miss.
Some good sports insight from the video game streamer guy pic.twitter.com/7n7vtDKpXB
— Wild Geerters (@steinkobbe) November 30, 2019
“Whenever you talk about something that has that much dependent on success or failure, you can see how that could potentially go wrong,” he explained, putting his thumb and index finger close together to dictate the measurement. “Especially when it has to happen in under 1.5 seconds from snap to kick when you have millions and millions of people watching you.”
“There is a lot of things that go into why kicking a football is a difficult task, I’m not saying it’s more difficult than becoming a Fortnite stud, because there’s millions and millions of people that play Fortnite and there’s only one Ninja,” he concluded, adding that kicking wasn’t easy.
That being said, McAfee’s video description does state that he would “love” to have Ninja on the podcast to talk and give his take on this whole ordeal. Hopefully, the Fortnite legend ends up accepting the offer and we dig deeper into his comments that have since been long-deleted.