'I Got So Angry I Had to Quit': Dale Earnhardt Jr. Admits Getting Too Worked Up Over His Madden League

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was quite the fierce competitor on the race track. But this nature wasn’t limited to just motorsports. One of his many pursuits in his free time is playing video games. A game that had him completely hooked and addicted to the level that he risked losing friendships over it was “Madden Mobile.”

In the “Ask Jr.” segment of the “Dale Jr. Download” podcast,  a fan had asked him if he’d ever gotten so angry when playing a game that he broke the controller out of frustration. Earnhardt Jr. admitted that while he did not break the controller itself, he had gotten angry enough to do it. It was back in the day when he was still an active player of Madden Mobile.

Junior noted that he had played the game with his co-host, TJ Majors, for around four or five years before realizing what it was doing to him. He said, “I got so angry that I had to quit. I had to stop doing it because it was bad for me. This guy right here, TJ. I love this guy. This is one of my best friends. We give each other total [expletive]. Mostly me giving him [expletive].”

“He hardly ever gives me [expletive], but I give him such [expletive] sometimes. But this is one of my best buds. And the Madden League had me so mad that it was really making me like I’m like, ‘Man, I value our friendship over what this is making me feel like. And so, I’m just going to drop Madden and get out of the league. I want to be friends. Let’s just be pals.'”

Earnhardt Jr. simply hadn’t been able to separate the emotions he truly felt for his friend and what the game was making him feel. Fortunately, he had been quick to get this awareness and set things right before they reached a point of no return. Interestingly, he had also noted a similar line of thought about the game to Jeff Gluck earlier this year. He’d said that it brings out the absolute worst in people and that he knew that it wasn’t a healthy hobby if he couldn’t control his emotions around winning and losing. But Junior wasn’t the only Cup Series icon with this problem. RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski used to be an active player as well, and he apparently regularly broke remotes.