The Danica Patrick NASCAR Era Begins

Saturday was the first race of the NASCAR Nationwide Series season and NASCAR fans everywhere are stoked for the new NASCAR season which constitutes 36 races and runs from the middle of February until late November. Today's opener on the Sprint Cup side was just won by Jamie McMurray after nearly 3 hours of delays due to potholes in the pavement. A good race to be sure, but no one wants to talk about the Daytona 500 or Jamie McMurray right now. Instead, more people are concentrated on Saturday's race and a superstar bigger than any superstar racing has seen in a long long time.

Quick question...does anyone actually know who won the Nationwide race on Saturday? I'll save everyone from having to test your google skills and tell you that it was Tony Stewart who won the race (I'll admit, I had to look it up as well). The real story behind that race was not Stewart however--it was Danica Patrick's NASCAR debut. If you don't believe me, believe the newspaper. In today's sports section, they had the 2010 NASCAR preview. The #1 story they mentioned was not Jimmie Johnson's pursuit of an unprecedented 5th championship in a row (his current streak of 4 in a row is already a record). It wasn't about Hendrick Motorsports trying to continue its domination of the Sprint Cup Series. It wasn't about Carl Edwards, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Juan Pablo Montoya, or any of the other extremely talented drivers trying to end Jimmie Johnson's record run. It was about none of those things. The #1 headline in the NASCAR preview section today read, "Danica Patrick can compete with the big boys."

If we look back at Patrick's week, we can see that it was a week full of ups and downs. On the first day of practice, Patrick managed to clock just the 27th fastest time (down). However, on day two of practice she was 5th fastest (up) and ended up qualifying 15th for Saturday's race (also an up). The good times did not last long however. Patrick started losing ground almost immediately after the race began, falling from 15th to 18th to 23rd to 27th to 33rd. On more than one occasion she fought her way back up into the low-mid 20's, but it was clear that she did not have the car, nor the confidence in the car, to compete with the leaders. Then on lap 69, she became collateral damage in a wreck that took out 12 cars. The wreck was certainly not her fault, and she did her very best to avoid it, but she had nowhere to go and her day ended on lap 69. She finished 35th.

I give Patrick all the credit in the world for going out there and trying something new. Racing stock cars is nowhere near the same thing as racing Indy cars. Just ask Sam Hornish Jr., who left open wheel racing for NASCAR a few years ago and has never come close to competing at the NASCAR level. Or Dario Franchitti, whose journey to NASCAR was so successful that his team was shut down half way through the 2008 season and resulted him crawling back to the IndyCar Series with his tail between his legs in 2009. Racing is racing, but comparing stock cars to Indy cars is like comparing apples to oranges--they are just two very different entities. Anyone who thought that Danica Patrick would come to NASCAR and compete right away was only fooling themselves. This is going to take some time.

My issue here is not that Danica Patrick has decided to try her hand at NASCAR. If she wants to do that, I think that's great. My issue is the amount of coverage she gets without doing anything on the track to justify it. My issue here is headlines like "Danica Patrick can compete with the big boys" after she finished her one and only race with these "big boys" 35th. Let me say it again in case you missed it--she finished 35th! That's like saying the Slovakian national hockey team can compete with the Canadian national team after Canada beat Slovakia 18-0 in the Olympics on Saturday. Yeah, they sure can compete if your definition of competing is being on the same ice as the Canadian team. That goes the same for Danica Patrick. She was on the same track as Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards, and Clint Boyer, but that is the only way she competed with them. She was never able to directly compete with them--she never found herself running up front with the leaders. That isn't saying that she won't get there eventually, but she is not to that point yet. Headlines like "Danica Patrick can compete with the big boys" are a little premature. How about we wait until she actually does something on the track before making declarations that she will be a dominate force in NASCAR.

Now you are reading this and some of you are probably thinking, "he's just a Danica Patrick hater." This is not the case at all. Danica Patrick is a talented driver and is very important to the sport of racing as a whole. All I am saying is that we should not overpraise her until she does something that justifies our praise. I don't care if she's a man, woman, or martian...a 35th place finish should not be celebrated like it is the best thing that ever happened. If her name was Dan Patrick and she finished 35th, there would not be word one spoken about Dan. No one would pay any attention to Dan until Dan did something that warranted that attention. I believe we should apply the same standards to Danica Patrick that we would anyone else.

Keep racing Danica. When you actually show that you are a competitor in NASCAR, I will be in the front of the line, ready to declare you one of the elite drivers. But you have to show me that you are before I am ready to do that.

Jets Should Thank the Colts

If you turn on Sportscenter or NFL Live or any other sports talk show right now, you probably hear about how the Jets are going to beat the Colts this weekend. They are going to be more physical, play with more heart, and their tenacious defense will end up rattling Peyton Manning. Pro Bowl cornerback Darelle Revis will shut down Reggie Wayne, and Manning will end up watching the Super Bowl from his sofa. It is amazing that a team that no one knew if they would even make the playoffs or not a year ago, is now the "favorite" to win the game against the team that was unbeatable all season. But, when teams are hot, people usually like to jump on the bandwagon. This is especially true when the team happens to be from New York.

I am not sure who is going to win the game between the Jets and the Colts. I look at the Jets and they look a lot like the team the Colts beat last week, the Baltimore Ravens. They both have great running games, play tough physical defense, and have young quarterbacks who do just enough to ensure that their team wins. Against the Ravens, it was the Colts defense that dominated the game, holding the Ravens to just three points. And while the Colts offense did not play as well as they typically do, they scored 20 points and the Colts won the game easily.

Jets supporters will argue that all you have to do is look at the regular season matchup to know what is going to happen in this game. The Jets came into LucasOil Stadium and beat a previously undefeated Colts team 29-15. This was a "win or go home" game for the Jets, just as the playoffs are. If the Jets would have lost that game, they would have been eliminated from playoff contention. So when their backs were against the wall, the Jets came into Indianapolis and took it to the Colts. Jets fans will tell you the exact same thing will happen this weekend. I am not arguing that fact. As I said before, I have no idea who will win this game. However, if the Jets do win, Rex Ryan's team owes a big "thank you" to the Colts coaching staff and Colts management.

Let us go back to Week 16. I am sitting in LucasOil Stadium with my sister, excited to see the undefeated Colts and Peyton Manning (who may go down as the best quarterback ever) play the Jets. On their second drive, the Colts looked like the Colts. Peyton marched his team right down the field--8 plays, 54 yards, 4:20 time of possession, and a Colts touchdown. Joseph Addai scored the touchdown, and he looked very strong in those first two drives--6 rushes for 40 yards and a touchdown. Then, after that touchdown, Joseph Addai disappeared for the rest of the game.

Colts fans were not worried however because they still had their not so secret weapon--Peyton Manning. The Colts next drive they went 10 plays, 86 yards and got a field goal out of that. Two drives later, Peyton marched the Colts down the field one more time--9 plays 81 yards and the Colts last touchdown of the game. At this point they were ahead 15-10 halfway through the third quarter. Then Colts management decided the game was over. Peyton Manning's day was done, as was each of the starter's. Welcome Curtis Painter, rookie quarterback out of Purdue.

Painter's first drive went 3 plays and 8 yards and resulted in a punt. And that was Painter's BEST drive of the game. On the first play of the next drive, Painter fumbles the football and it is returned for a Jets touchdown. Jets now lead 18-15. When Manning still did not return on the next drive, everybody in the arena knew the game was over. Jets win, Jets win and their playoff hopes are still alive as a result. The Jets went out the next week and completely destroyed the Bengals 37-0. The Bengals, who had already clinched their playoff spot, looked as disinterested in the Week 17 game as any team could get. So after the Colts and Bengals gift-wrapped a playoff spot for the Jets, the Jets entered the playoffs and Rex Ryan declared that his team should be Super Bowl favorites. People laughed until this team went out and beat up the Bengals (again). I wonder if the Bengals are sitting at home today thinking that they might have wanted to actually try to beat the Jets in the last game of the regular season. At the time they did not think the game was important, let the Jets into the playoffs, and the Jets made them pay for that mistake.

This weekend the Jets have a chance to "thank" the Colts for their playoff spot, just as they "thanked" the Bengals in the Wild Card round. And if the Jets do indeed beat the Colts, the Colts have no one to blame but themselves. When Manning and the starters were in the Week 16 game, the Colts were in control. The offense was doing what it wanted to do, and the defense was holding the Jets in check. Had Jim Caldwell, the Colts coach, kept his starters in the game, one could make the argument that the Colts win the game and the Jets are currently watching the playoffs from home. Would it not be ironic if, by pulling the starters to make sure they are healthy and rested for a Super Bowl run, the Colts end up costing themselves a Super Bowl berth by letting a team that would not have made the playoffs in AND giving them confidence? Jim Caldwell better hope his team goes out and beats the Jets this weekend or all people in Colts country will talk about is how the Colts beat themselves and cost them a chance at the Super Bowl.