NASCAR: The irony of Kyle Larson’s controversial NFL comparison

NASCAR driver Kyle Larson drew an interesting comparison to a former NFL Pro Bowler upon his firing, and that comparison turned out to be quite ironic.

During what turned out to be a 10-week hiatus from NASCAR Cup Series action stemming from the coronavirus pandemic earlier this season, Kyle Larson lost his job as the driver of the #42 Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Larson and a number of other drivers were participating in a virtual race on iRacing at Autodromo Nazionale Monza when the 28-year-old Elk Grove, California native uttered the N-word. That race was being live streamed on multiple Twitch channels, and his use of a racial slur went viral.

While Larson was suspended by both NASCAR and Chip Ganassi Racing in the hours that followed, he was not fired until multiple sponsors cut ties with him and Chip Ganassi’s hand was practically forced, given that millions of dollars in sponsorship funding were on the line.

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RACER‘s Marshall Pruett, who published an article titled “We Don’t Know Kyle Larson” on Road & Track in which he delved into Larson’s background and how he got to where he was, compared Larson’s situation to that of embattled NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown.

Many fans questioned why somebody would compare anybody who used one word, no matter how vulgar that one word, to somebody who had constantly been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the years. Pruett himself noted several of Brown’s misdeeds.

But this comparison was by no means saying that what Larson did on one occasion was better or worse or equal to what Brown did on multiple.

What this comparison illustrated is that while both athletes are super talented, they put their sporting leagues and team owners in positions where they were effectively forced to set aside their talents and make decisions about their futures with the rest of the information which was available to them regarding their respective controversies.

So Brown, despite being one of the best wide receivers in the NFL throughout the 2010s, was traded from the Pittsburgh Steelers to the Oakland Raiders after the 2018 season.

Then the Raiders released him before he played a game. The New England Patriots predictably signed him before the 2019 season, but even after one game in which he caught a touchdown pass from Tom Brady en route to a 43-0 rout over the Miami Dolphins, he was released yet again and did not play another snap in 2019.

Now look at Larson. His talent also had nothing to do with his firing. He entered the 2020 season as one of only three drivers without a finish outside of the top nine in the championship standings from 2016 to 2019, and yet Sunday, March 8 turned out to the final day he would compete in a Cup Series race in 2020.

You can spend all day comparing the situations of the two athletes, and at the end of the day, they are indeed a lot different. But the responses to them by those in authority were nearly identical in that talent was rendered irrelevant by those who ultimately determine who plays and who drives.

But time has passed. Second chances do, in fact, still exist in a world full of “cancel culture”.

How ironic is it, then, that after all this time, in Larson’s case more than six months and in Brown’s case more than a full year, that Larson signed with Hendrick Motorsports on the same day, Wednesday, October 28, that Brown signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to reunite with Tom Brady?

Larson is set to make his debut for Hendrick Motorsports behind the wheel of the #5 Chevrolet on Sunday, February 14, 2021 at Daytona International Speedway in the 63rd annual Daytona 500 following his official reinstatement on Friday, January 1, 2021. Brown is set to make his Buccaneers debut in their home game at Raymond James Stadium against the New Orleans Saints this evening.