Pat McAfee hilariously recalls Adam Vinatieri sending him to 'holding camp' before rookie season

Pat McAfee certainly has a knack for story-telling, and after taking a bit of a break from his normal duties with ESPN, he was in rare form this week at the NFL Combine.

McAfee joined the set of NFL Network and chopped it up on a number of topics, including one near and dear to him.

Namely, he discussed how much he did not necessarily want to be a holder at the NFL level. In fact, he even went to great lengths to avoid having to do so.

“I was a kicker in college, so I obviously couldn’t hold for myself,” Pat McAfee said. “But a lot of people though, well a couple people thought I was going to be a punter in the NFL, and if you’re a punter you have to hold.”

If you know anything about McAfee, of course, you know that his days as a professional were spent as a punter, not a kicker. So you probably have a decent idea where the story is headed.

“So Bill Polian asked me literally in the draft leadup, ‘Hey, you’ve held before? You’ve practiced before because you knew that there was a chance you were going to have to hold?'” McAfee said. “I said, ‘Absolutely, I used to do it like three days a week in practice in college and everything like that.’ I’d never done it once in my life.”

This story from @PatMcAfeeShow about @adamvinatieri sending him to a holding camp as a rookie is hilarious 😂

📺: #NFLCombine on @nflnetwork
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/t7xFZcMU44

— NFL (@NFL) March 2, 2024

Now Pat McAfee enters some dicey territory. He had convinced at least one key NFL decision-maker that he was perfectly capable of holding.

Things unfolded hilariously from there, with McAfee eventually earning a forced crash course.

“Then I get drafted to hold for Adam Vinatieri, the greatest of all time,” McAfee said. “So Adam Vinatieri sent me to a holding camp in North Carolina to learn how to hold, that’s real deal. That first training camp he threw me no less than 500 balls throughout the day. He’d come to my dorm room at night to throw me balls to make sure I could do it.

“Because he had a Hall of Fame career already done and established and some lying punk wasn’t going to ruin all that. And he made me better. He made me great.”

Pat McAfee turned into a pretty darned good punter in the league, with a career average of 46.4 yards and a season best of 49.3 yards. He lasted eight years with the Colts.

Though they don’t keep stats on holding, it’s safe to say he probably did a pretty good job to be employed that long.