Mark Madden: Don't blame Pat McAfee for ESPN's firings

Pat McAfee got $85 million to join ESPN.

ESPN laid off about 20 on-air personalities shortly thereafter.

Idiot’s logic dictates that if B follows A, A caused B.

But that’s not what happened.

Even since Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann transcended ESPN and became some semblance of mainstream stars in the mid ’90s, the Worldwide Leader has taken great pains to not let that happen again. It’s too costly.

A few slip through the cracks, like Stephen A. Smith’s bloated self-parody and Scott Van Pelt’s late-night semi-stardom. (He’s Fallon, not Carson.)

But mostly, ESPN serves vanilla. It’s about the brand, not the performers.

Look closely at ESPN’s debate shows, even. They’re not controversial. They’re manufactured, loud and dumb.

ESPN didn’t lose anything via its latest round of cuts.

Neil Everett and Suzy Kolber are mega-professional. But their absence won’t matter one bit.

ESPN already has too many like Max Kellerman. McAfee, for example.

Jalen Rose is thoroughly insufferable. Remember when Rose, Michelle Beadle and Mike Greenberg co-hosted the initial version of the “Get Up” morning show? Greenberg was the nice-guy filling in an arrogance sandwich. It’s like he was held hostage. Rose and Beadle left. The show suddenly worked.

Keyshawn Johnson couldn’t draw money if you dipped him in Super Glue and dragged him through a bank vault.

Those fired weren’t dismissed for the sake of freeing up cash to pay McAfee and his troupe. They got canned to maintain ESPN’s profit margin.

McAfee generates revenue. Those let go don’t. Not one of them.

That said, it will end horribly between McAfee and ESPN.

ESPN says it will give McAfee free rein. ESPN might even believe that right now.

But ESPN won’t. ESPN can’t help itself. Look at the one-episode fiasco of “Barstool Van Talk.”

Perhaps ESPN could give Bomani Jones employment now that his HBO sports show got canceled. Then again, ESPN has already terminated Jones twice: Once on TV, once on radio.

Jones is flawed on several levels, not least having apparently had charisma bypass surgery. ZZZZZzzzzz…

He’s also guilty of tying sports into politics and race far too often for the viewers’ liking.

Too many in the entertainment industry are so busy promoting agendas, however righteous, that they completely ignore the customers.

How much has Jones changed? Nothing. He’s not made anything better, including his career. He just talks.

Same goes for the like-minded Jemele Hill. Remember her mercifully brief ruination of “SportsCenter”?

Same goes for the U.S. women’s soccer team. They used to be America’s sweethearts but have since politicized themselves into a low profile, even with a Women’s World Cup starting in two weeks.

The only social initiative achieved by the U.S. women’s soccer team was getting themselves more money. Long live capitalism.

Which circles back to McAfee.

His show has gone a little too “bro” for me. But I’m 62. I’m not supposed to get it.

McAfee gives one of the world’s biggest jerks a bully pulpit, namely Aaron Rodgers. I would, too. But it still stinks.

McAfee’s show is a no-stress, let’s-be-friends destination for athletes like, for example, Kenny Pickett, who appears almost exclusively on such programs.

Full credit to McAfee, who surpassed both my radio and wrestling careers inside of a few months. (He always was a better punter.)

McAfee didn’t get anybody fired from ESPN. ESPN is the bad guy.

ESPN juxtaposed McAfee’s hiring and the latest terminations to deflect blame from the company. Just like the bad guy would do.