Former Notre Dame star wide receiver Golden Tate stuck a giant maple bar in his mouth on Wednesday night when he criticized five-time consecutive NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson's inclusion in the ESPY's "Best Male Athlete" category.

Tate, known more recently as the Seattle Seahawks wide receiver who broke into a donut shop, started things off by tweeting the following ignorant comment:

@ShowtimeTate: Jimmy johnson up for best athlete???? Um nooo .. Driving a car does not show athleticism

Oh boy.

Tate immediately drew the ire of NASCAR fans, but he only dug a bigger hole for himself by trying to defend his statement with the following tweets.

@ShowtimeTate: I've driven a car on unknown roads at night at 90mph no big deal. No sign of athletism

@ShowtimeTate: Guarantee he couldn't in million year play any SPORT

@ShowtimeTate: give me 6 months of training and I bet I could compete

As fans continued to protest Tate's asinine statements, he brought out the old "You're not an athlete, so you can't talk" mentality.

He tweeted to one fan:

@ShowtimeTate: have u won anything at all??

And to another:

@ShowtimeTate: your just upset that only thing u can do is tweet at people u wish u were talented enough to be. To bad no1 cares about u

Classy, right? Surely, we all wish we could break into donut shops at 3 a.m.

Tate tried to defend himself one more time with a general comment about NASCAR, acknowledging that while the sport may be hard, "You don't have to be athletic to do that."

Eventually, though, he grew tired of NASCAR Nation thumping him and issued an "apology."

@ShowtimeTate: Apologies for my offensive comment to NASCAR fans. I actually read up on it and NO I couldn't race a car 150 mph

Or 200 mph, for that matter. Clearly, Golden Tate is no Chad Ochocinco.