NASCAR driver Kyle Larson compared to controversial NFL star

The response to the controversy surrounding NASCAR driver Kyle Larson has drawn a comparison to the response to the controversy surrounding a former NFL Pro Bowler.

Kyle Larson went from promising NASCAR star driving for one of the sport’s top teams at the sport’s highest level to unemployed in a matter of a few dozen hours after saying one six-letter word from the comfort of his own home.

But because of what it was, that one word, a racial slur, spread like wildfire.

Now the driver who many considered a potential superstar and who many considered the top pending free agent of the upcoming offseason in arguably the most loaded free agent class in the sport’s history is unemployed.

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His one promising career has been derailed for the foreseeable future because of one split-second action that he can’t undo.

And while he, like anybody, deserves a second chance, there is nothing wrong with the fallout. There is nothing wrong with the response to Larson’s action by ex-team Chip Ganassi Racing, ex-sponsors Credit One Bank and McDonald’s, among others, and ex-manufacturer Chevrolet. They all acted appropriately by cutting ties with the 27-year-old Elk Grove, California native shortly after the racial slur was used.

Using the N-word in any context is utterly reprehensible. But stating it on a live stream — as a professional athlete and a so-called role model, no less — with thousands of fans of all ages watching, and millions more with the ability to find out what went down within minutes in the age of social media, makes it even worse.

Consider this: there are three drivers who compete in the Cup Series and have not finished outside of the top nine in the championship standings at any point in the last four seasons. Those three drivers are Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson.

Now Harvick and Busch are the only two of these drivers with Cup rides.

Why? Because talent, in Larson’s case, was rendered irrelevant in the eyes of all of those who make the decisions regarding with whom to fill the seats of the stock cars that compete on Sundays.

And again, there is nothing wrong with that.

RACER‘s Marshall Pruett, whose article “We Don’t Know Kyle Larson” on Road & Track gives unique insight into Larson’s background and how he got to this ultra-low point, even compared this situation to that of embattled NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown.

This comment, which was made before Larson was officially fired, drew criticism from fans asking why Pruett would compare someone using one word, no matter how vulgar that one word is, to somebody who has been in the news for all the wrong reasons on multiple occasions over the years, specifically within the last few.

Pruett himself even noted a few of the many examples of Brown’s misdeeds in this tweet, and those are really just the tip of the iceberg.

Brown spent the first nine years of his NFL career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but as the end of the 2018 season approached, there was clearly trouble brewing.

That trouble, as many expected, reared its ugly head in more ways than a few, as Pruett noted, and now the seven-time Pro Bowler and four-time First-Team All-Pro, who was arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL of the 2010s decade, is not on an NFL roster.

And that may not change.

But the issue is not whether what Larson said is or isn’t worse than what Brown has done. In the context of this comparison, it doesn’t matter, nor did Pruett say that it does.

The issue here is how the NFL and NASCAR and team owners have been put into unenviable positions in which they are effectively forced to completely set aside the talent that these two athletes bring to the table and make decisions about the futures of their organizations using all of the other available information.

The comparison, irrespective of the trespasses of either athlete, is accurate.

Put it this way: on talent alone, Brown and Larson would have never been unemployed. They would both be on rosters as I sit here writing this article, except it wouldn’t be this article.

There’s a reason why Robert Kraft tried to give Brown a chance with the New England Patriots. But there’s also a reason why, even after scoring a touchdown in his first game with the team, a 43-0 victory, Kraft turned his first game with the franchise into his only game with the franchise.

And there’s a reason he hasn’t been on a roster since them, kind of like how there’s a reason that a perennial Cup Series contender is suddenly unemployed, and with no end to that unemployment in sight.

Consider this: NASCAR hasn’t even been in action for over a month. The season is currently suspended indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic. The most recent race took place on Sunday, March 8 at Phoenix Raceway.

Yet 37 days removed from any NASCAR action, Larson lost his NASCAR ride. Why? Because it wasn’t a NASCAR decision, just like the fact that Brown’s unemployment was and remains not an NFL decision.

You can waste as much time as you want to waste comparing the situations of Larson and Brown, because at the end of the day, they are a lot different. But the responses to them by those in authority over their careers have been nearly identical, just as they have had to be.