Nick Wright on Harrison Butker
Credit: First Things First on FS1
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At the height of the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty, kicker Harrison Butker became a symbol for conservative values after discussing his religiously motivated views on family life during a speech at Benedictine College.
The 2024 speech became a lightning rod across the media, with everyone from ESPN’s Laura Rutledge to Serena Williams to Eddie Vedder ripping Butker for comments in which he cited “diabolical lies” told to women and called “homemaker” “one of the most important titles of all.”
The Chiefs stood by Butker: Head coach Andy Reid defended him in the media, and tight end Travis Kelce sidestepped the controversy on his popular podcast. And while Butker continued as the team’s kicker, he also launched a conservative political action committee (PAC) and a menswear brand called Shepherd’s.
After a couple decent seasons following the controversial speech, the 31-year-old kicker has made less than 70 percent of his field goals this year and went just 1-for-3 in Kansas City’s Week 7 loss on Sunday Night Football.
Reacting to the Chiefs’ loss Monday on First Things First, host Nick Wright, a noted fan of the team, called out Butker’s “activism” as a reason for his decline.
“He started splitting his time between football and activism, and he hasn’t been quite as good,” he said. “That is just the timeline of it.”
Nick Wright on Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker after 1-3 performance on Sunday Night Football:
“He started splitting his time between football and activism, and he hasn’t been quite as good. That is just the timeline of it.” 🏈 📺 https://t.co/uw97bigoaw
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 26, 2026
While Wright also noted Butker’s age, he said he no longer feels as confident when the kicker steps up for a field goal as he did for the entirety of Kansas City’s dynasty.
The comments matter not only because they pin Butker’s struggles through the first two months of the season on his off-field work, but also because they sharply diverge from what Wright’s co-host, Chris Broussard, said after Butker’s campus speech in 2024.
“Today is so polarizing that people on national television or radio, people are blatantly misinterpreting what people are saying when what they actually said is right there and contradicting what you say,” Broussard said at the time. “With Harrison Butker, people took it like he was saying ‘women shouldn’t work’ and ‘women should be at home in the kitchen cooking and having babies.’ He didn’t say that!”
Indeed, the backlash to Butker’s comments was far more wide-ranging than many worse athlete quotes in recent years. As Broussard noted, the quip become a rallying cry for women in sports media and beyond despite the fact that Butker did not directly argue that women should not pursue meaningful careers.
Butker’s political work in the years since may offend some more, and it certainly qualifies more as the “activism” Wright lamented than a speech at a university. But the Chiefs won a Super Bowl the season after Butker’s speech, and the kicker didn’t truly fall off until this season, more than two years after he moved toward “activism.”
This line of criticism toward Butker is out of step for Wright, who has been vocal about an absolutist view of athlete activism. Even if some agree that Butker lost a step or got distracted in recent seasons, it would be strongly frowned upon to level the same criticism at an athlete advocating left-leaning views. This may be one case where Wright’s fanatical coverage led him to cross a line and offer unreasonable commentary.