Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy has defended Aaron Rodgers’ right to have his own opinion after the quarterback’s explosive appearance on Pat McAfee’s ESPN show Monday.

In an astonishing 13-minute tirade on live TV, Rodgers unleashed at ‘coward’ and ‘criminal’ Dr. Anthony Fauci after the former White House chief medical adviser continuously pleaded the fifth amendment in a hostile senate hearing on Covid-19 last week.

As he arrived on set Monday, the 42-year-old appeared to ask how long the broadcast had left on ESPN, before McAfee said they had ‘a hard out’ after just eight minutes.

‘I’m going to plead the fifth… like that absolute coward Tony Fauci,’ Rodgers then fumed after being asked a football-related question.

‘Absolute coward,’ he continued of Fauci. ‘Are you kidding me? You got a pardon and you pleaded over 100 times? What are you scared of, Tony? I thought you were the science?’

Rodgers, who was vilified over his skepticism about the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, also took aim at ESPN while on the network after accusing them of failing to cover Fauci’s hearing.

Steelers coach Mike McCarthy has defended Aaron Rodgers’ right to have his own opinion

Rodgers went on an astonishing 13-minute tirade on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show on Monday

‘How much time did the network spend on that? How much time did they spend on my responses every week? On my vaccination status? On Taylor and Travis’ wedding? Did they do even a minute on Tony Fauci? No, I bet they didn’t,’ he argued.

‘Go back to the coward Tony Fauci, who’s spending the entire time writing in his diary about how fun it is to be famous? What are you going to say about me now? What are you going to say about me now?’

Rodgers’ outburst quickly went viral on social media, with the Daily Mail revealing on Tuesday that furious ESPN bosses are now planning to show none of his NFL highlights throughout the 2026 season.

When asked about his quarterback’s blistering remarks this week, McCarthy stressed that the focus in Pittsburgh is purely on football despite admitting his players ‘all have different opinions’.

‘You know, these are grown men,’ he told reporters Tuesday. ‘They all have different opinions. There’s no question about that.

‘But at the end of the day, my job is to keep it about football, keep the focus on winning. That’s why we’re here.

‘We have a good locker room. We have a player council that’s in place and we had our second meeting (Monday), and so I think we’re in a good spot.’

Rodgers’ animated rant came years after he was widely criticized in the media and by fans throughout the Covid pandemic for his reluctance to take the vaccine.

The quarterback took aim at Dr. Anthony Fauci, who pleaded the fifth over 100 times at a hostile Covid-19 senate hearing last week

At points, McAfee covered his eyes as Rodgers got everything off his chest live on ESPN

He told reporters at the time that he was ‘immunized’, leading to question marks over whether he had received the jabs, and he openly criticized the NFL’s protocol to deal with the virus.

Last week, Fauci appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for a volatile hearing on COVID-19.

Fauci refused to answer questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself more than 100 times.

He had been called in front of the committee to be questioned on the origins of Covid, including whether a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was more likely than previously acknowledged.

Rodgers, in his appearance on ESPN, claimed that was ‘obviously’ the origin, though the truth is far more unclear and investigations are still ongoing.

‘I was endangering my teammates? Now look what happened,’ he said. ‘They suppressed early treatments, they lied about where it came from. Tony Fauci is writing in his journal, “I don’t want to create any vaccine hesitancy if I tell them what the actual stats are.”

The Super Bowl winner was previously villified over his reluctance to take the Covid-19 vaccine

‘Tony Fauci pushing his medicine, just like he did back in the 80s, and now he has an autopen pardon and you can’t answer one question? Not even your name?

‘I told you I’d be on the right side of history.’

On Tuesday, Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, responded to Rodgers with a swift shutdown of his comments.

‘Aaron Rodgers doesn’t know what he’s talking about,’ Schertler told The Athletic on Fauci’s behalf. ‘He should stick to football.’