Donovan McNabb: got payed and killed worms.

I just wanted to write a quick post about the bs Donavan McNabb was throwing around on Thursday's "First Take". First, let's look at what he said. When asked whether Baylor QB and likely #2 pick in this year's draft Robert Griffin III would thrive under Mike Shanahan's leadership McNabb responded with this:"No. I say. that because a lot of times, ego gets too involved when it comes to being in Washington." In response to that I will say this, the only ego that seemed to get in the way in Washington while McNabb was in Washington was McNabb's. The coaches tried time and again to make him successfull and McNabb responded by looking like a scared 40 year old qb who, when he could get the ball out in time, mostly threw in to the ground. Admittedly, the Skins did not have the talent to help McNabb win, but I think Minnesota proved last year that most teams don't and won't have enough talent to make McNabb a winner. Most of the time you look for a qb who can improve his team mates, which is what the Redskins are looking to do with the draft of RGIII, but with McNabb there are always excuses for his shortcomings and most of the time it is his team mates or, like in the case, his coaches getting thrown under the bus. McNabb came from a fairly similar system in Philadelphia and just couldn't produce in Washington. I am not sure what else the coaches can do to help a QB other than give them the plays and let them play. McNabb got every chance to prove himself in
Washington and just couldn't do it. When he arrived in Washington I was one of the suckers who but a jersey and imagined McNabb bringing glory back to D.C. I should have payed more attention to his time in Philly  and realized that no matter what the team does around him McNabb would never bring glory. In the end he is an old runnning qb who's arm is slightly better than Tebow's and now I am stuck with a jersey I couldn't give away and he is on tv blaming every one but him self for not being able win with a Hall of Fame coach. RGIII, if he lands with the Skins, will thrive under Shanahan because he is vastly more talented then McNabb ever was and no coach, no matter how big the ego, can hold that down. Hail!

NCAA Tournament 2012

I'll start this by saying that being a Virginia Tech fan has severely jaded my opinion of the tournament and it's selection process. I still respect it as one of best and most entertaining ways to determine a champion and I wish the Hokies could make it there more often. Alas we seem to have burn some bridge with those who make the decisions on who gets to play and we may never get in unless we win a conference championship. Moving on, this year's tournament started with a bang and seems, at least to me, as if it has lost some of it's luster. I am sure some people enjoy seeing the top seeds battle it out but I think the majority of people, especially the casual fans, the David vs. Galiath match ups much more. This year we don't really have that. Early on we saw VCU and Norfolk State with some big upsets but now it is down to Louisville, Ohio State,  Baylor, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Kansas. There aren't many scrubs in that group and I know I have used this line before but if there was a way for them all to lose I might enjoy that a bit more than any of them winning. Not that I dislike the schoold individually, there just isn't a team to root for as an underdog. If I had to pick a team to root for it would have to be Baylor and that is mostly due to the fact that I am a Redskins fan and it looks like we might have a Baylor alum at the helm next year. I expect the final to come down to Kentucky vs. Louisville and I don't really care who wins out of that match-up but it looks to me like Petino has the Cardinals rockin and I think this will be. their year. Let's hope for some more good games even though there isn't a David to root for and maybe next year the Hokies will be able to punch their ticket to the dance.

Wizards pick-up of Nene

I just wanted to share my thoughts on the Wizards trade for Nene even though it happened a few days ago. At first I wasn't sure how this would pay off as we gave up Javale Mcgee and Nick Young for Nene and Brian Cook. Obviously I think Nene is an improvement over Mcgee but I have never heard much Brian Cook. A couple games after the trade it looks like my initial thoughts were pretty accurate, however it seems I under estimated the effect Nene could have on a game. Since he has been playing with the Wizards our assists have gone up especially from the post and I believe are offensive efficiency numbers have drastically improved. It just goes to show what having a 7 footer with talent and knowledge of how to play the game can do for your team. We are only 1-2 with him but the 2 losses were by a combined 4 points and I think everyone who has watched can see the difference on the court. We look like a much better team with Nene and honestly at this point he is helping me to forget Young and Mcgee rather quickly. I liked both of those players but they obviously didn't have the basketball IQ to help this team progress. I feel that they are better as role players coming off the bench to provide a spark for their teams rather than starters. I wish them the best and hope they find better luck in their new homes. The trade deadline had past now but I hope moving forward the Wizards make more moves like this one and aquire guys that not only have the talent but also the smarts to improve this team with both individual production and the ability to improve those around them. Right now this looks like a great move and let's hope they keep it up so maybe we can gain some momentum at the end of the year. Go Wiz!

Orioles Spring Training

It has been a while since I have found the time to write and I am glad I get to do it today. As we all know the start of the season is fast approaching and as with every other season I am probably getting too excited for season that will more than likely end with disappointment. However today I will harness my excitement and try to focus on the positive because right now we are all tied for first and anything can happen. It is hard to know what you can take from spring training games in terms of how performances will translate to the regular season, but winning is always a positive, spring or not. Right now we aren't blowing the grapefruit league away, but with a record of 10-9 I think we are showing some progress. An 83-81 record at the end of the regular season would be very much a reason to celebrate in Baltimore. The focus of the spring has been on pitching, defense, and on-base percentage.

Starting with pitching, I think there have been more positives than negatives. The worst of the negatives has really been injuries rather than poor outings. The biggest injury is probably the news that Matt Hobgood is injured again and it looks like he will miss the entire season. You have to feel for this kid even though the decision to draft him wasn't exactly welcomed by all of Birdland. There have been other various and minor injuries, however too many to mention here. It looks to me like the heart of the rotation is still intact with big performances coming from Jake Arrieta, Brian Matusz, and Jason Hammel. I think some combination of those three will be the top 3 on our staff with Wei Yi Chen and Tommy Hunter looking like the best to round it out right now. Zach Britton will probably miss the early part of the season but I am sure he will start in the majors before the end of the season, as well as Aramando Gallaraga and Chris Tillman with outside shots at a starting spot. Overall the outings for the starters have gone well and I think you have to give some of that credit to Matt Weiters who looks like he has taken another step forward and should challenge for a golden glove and perhaps a silver slugger if he progresses at the plate. The bullpen still looks solid and hopefully some of the younger guys can continue to improve out there as well. Jason Berken and Tsuyoshi Wada look to be the long men, with Zach Philips and Troy Patton for the leftie specialist. Look for Jim Johnson, Kevin Gregg, and Pedro Strop in the late innings, and Alfredo Simon, Dontrelle Willis, and others looking for a place to fit in. There is a lot more competition this year with the pitchers and it looks to me like the added competition could be helping to improve what we have. If Brian Matusz can find his old form and perhaps Tillman and Arrieta taking a step forward you could be looking at a huge improvement in the runs per game department. As always, fingers are crossed, it seems like we are consistently putting our money on these young guys and eventually that will pay off, right?

Defensively the O's don't seem to be showing much improvement now and that is a harder stat to judge in the spring as many of the fielders playing and accruing errors may not make the team. So sometimes it is hard to tell what combination of fielders will perform the best. Right now the only improvement I see is on the bench as the starting lineup will be very similar to last year's and I just don't see that lineup playing defense at a much higher level. I think the guys we have have basically shown what they are capable of and that isn't that great. But playing in the AL East sometimes you have to keep some liabilities on defense in order to provide the offense needed. Mark Reynolds looks slightly better carrying less weight around and I do think Andino could be improved as he is going into this season knowing he will be the starter at second base. The same goes for Nolan Reimold in my opinion and personally he is the player I am pulling for the most. Since he came up the first time in 2009 and showed flashes of his talent I think many O's fans have wanted to see him play more. Unfortunately injuries have derailed that plan a bit, but this year he is healthy and expects to be the every day left fielder and hopefully that provides him with the confidence to carry some of the load offensively and defensively. Adam Jones and Nick Markakis should be steady as usual and hopefully JJ Hardy can maintain his defense from last year. Maybe Chris Davis knowing he will be the first baseman will help him as well but at this point I think he is who he is.

Lastly, on-base percentage was a big focus in terms of players that we picked up in the off season and this seems to have payed. The biggest production is coming from Endy Chavez and it is a welcome sign to see a bench player who looks to be able to produce just as well if not better than a starter. It is still strange to think of Wilson Betemit as a DH, at least to me, and especially strange to see a DH hitting in the 7-9 spots in the order. Betemit does seem to have a good eye and make good contact but I wonder if the lower power numbers from the DH spot will hurt our over all production. However you don't have to knock em in with home runs and hopefully he can at least provide more opportunities to score runs than Vlady did last year. I loved Vladimir Guerero as a player but it was painfull to watch him try to run last year. If nothing else I think Betemit can stretch a double into a triple a little easier. Also Ryan Flaherty and Nick Johnson are producing well in the spring and hopefully they can all help to inspire all the hitters to be patient and hopefully that will turn in to more early exits for opposing starters and more runs put up on the board.

So that is what I have seen this spring, hopefully the guys continue to improve and we can head into the regular season with some momentum. As we all know the pitching will be the biggest key and fingers crossed these good starts in spring translate to good starts in the regular season, also let's hope we can avoid the injury bug. On a side note if you want some new O's gear, check out protectthisyard.spreadshirt.com. I don't have any affiliation with them but they have some awesome t-shirts and I just made my first order today. Their designs are the best for any Baltimore fan. Let's Go O's!

Orioles vs. Redsox at 1 on MASN

The Orioles have a spring training match up with the Redsox today and luckily for me I will get to watch this one. I haven't gotten to see much about the Orioles on tv as I was traveling this past week and they basically zero national coverage, and for good reason, just saying. I would have liked to have seen yesterday's game versus the Phillies as from what I have read Brian Matusz and Alfredo Simon pitched really well. I know it is only spring training and you can't read too much into these early innings, but any good sign from Matusz is huge considering the year he had last year. The same goes for Simon after missing much of the year with his whole murder charge situation in his home country. The two of them went 7 scoreless yesterday and the team combined to shutout the Phillies. The Phillies didn't have all of their starters out there, sitting the likes of Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. However that is still a formidable lineup and a good one to get a win against. Chris Davis scored the only run with his, and the O's, first homerun of the spring. You would like to see a little more power a week and a half into spring, but as Davis said at this point teams are working more on contact than power. And as we all know a lot of this season is going to come down to how well our guys can get on base in order to give our pitchers a bit of a cusion to work with.

I also missed the Rays vs. O's game in which Reimold got hit in the left side of his face. The good news he has already returned to the club house the question now is how will his return to the plate go. We have all seen players affected by getting hit by a pitched or batted ball with differing levels of severity. It will be interesting to see if Reimold can step up and not show signs of being afraid of the ball or if he will look more like Daniel Cabrera after he got hit by a batted ball, I think we all remember how hard that was to watch. More than likely he will end up some where in between as most players who go through this do. It has to be one of the hardest things to do in sport, to get back in the batters box and face a pitcher knowing that you could get hit again and might not turn out as well. We should see fairly soon how it has affected Nolan as some reports have him returning by the end of the week. We will have to wait and see but that is a pretty quick turn around for a guy who just got hit in the face.

Today's game versus the Redsox should be another good test against an AL East lineup. The Redsox aren't throwing all of their starters out there but most would say that their backups should beat us the majority of the time. The big test will be for Dana Eveland and I am extremely interested in seeing how he performs. Much was made of us picking him up and giving him a shot, today should be a good early sign of whether this move will pay off or not. Let's hope the offense turns it up a little bit as well, I know it is only spring training but I love beating the Redsox, who doesn't? Go O's!

Hokies Basketball season over.

From all acounts the Hokies season will not continue in any post season tournament. They are far from being eligible for the NCAA tourney and it looks like the NIT will also pass them by considering their losing record. The school stated that it would not accept an invitation to the CBI or the Collegeinsiders.com tournament. While that decision is a little confusing considering a team with four freshmen could use every bit of time on the court they can get, I can see why these guys might be ready to pack it in and look forward to next year.

As we all know this was a tough year for the Hokies and while being in almost every game proves to be the silver lining heading into next year, it makes the losses that much harder to swallow when you know they were close enough to win if they just had a little more help. They only lose a couple of players this year, although they are big contributors in terms of minutes points and rebounds. Dorenzo Hudson is really going to be missed, although his career never blew up into what we thought it would be following the '09-'10 he was still a leader and provided some late game heroics for this year's team. He is one of my favorite Hokies and hopefully he can find some work overseas and continue his career on the court. Victor Davila is the other big loss and although he was missing for the last couple of game s of the year due to a hamstring injury, he will also be missed. Victor showed how good Greenberg is at developing talent in my opinion. In his freshman year he was extremely raw, as most freshman are, but I don't think anyone expected the improvement  in Davila offensively through out his career and especially in his senior year. I will personally miss seeing that hook shot next year. He should be able to find work overseas as well. The only other seniors were Joey Racer and r-senior J.T. Thompson who will eligible to play next year after spending two years off due to injuries to his knees. Racer was a walk-on who received a scholorship for the second half of the year after performing well in practice. He didn't receive hardly any playing time but I am sure the team will miss him.

Next year I look for some big things for this team and I expect the media to put some pressure on this group as well. More than likely Erick Green will be a pre-season all ACC pick and Dorian Finney-Smith might get mention for the second team. Also they add two freshmen forwards in Montrezl Harrell and Marshall Wood, both of whom are well respected and should push for playing time early. Also J.T. Thompson will be looking to prove he can still play and be a high energy player. I hope he is able to do that as most of us remember the kind of effect he could have on a game in his freshman and sophomore seasons. I am sure there will be a couple more walk-ons added and hopefully they can pick up some more depth at guard so Erick Green might be able to rest a bit and have more energy at the end of games. I am not sure that we will have the depth that all of us yearn for but the talent should be better and I think there will be more "starters" on the bench than in years past. Next year should be just as exciting and hopefully we end up on the right end more often than not. Go HOKIES!

Kobalt Tools 400 starts at 3:00pm, Kevin Harvick starts 3rd

Kevin Harvick will start the race to day in third place and coincidentally he also starts the day at third place in the Sprint Cup Standings. After two good showings to start the year we now get a chance to see if he may be able to close out a race. As we all know wins are more important than ever and if Kevin and his crew can take care of the car and track position today they have a great shot at picking up a win and ten points towards the chase at the end of the year. Starting up in the pack is always an advantage and if this team wants to win they need to take more advantage of that and get as many bonus points as they can before the chase starts.

Las Vegas has been a pretty good track for Harvick, however he has been a little more inconsistent here. His average finish is 13th with a worst of 27th and a best of 2nd. Although he hasn't won at this track he has has some great runs there. In 2005 he started 42nd and worked his way all the way to finish 5th. And in 2010 he started in the 34th spot and got all the way to 2nd for his best finish ever at the track. He has also had some good luck at Las Vegas, staying in 98% of the laps available. A lot of racing comes down to luck, hopefully Kevin can hang on to some luck and continue his success on Sunday. In my opinion he should at least get a top ten finish given his starting position and past history. As long as the luck holds out he should be able to keep pace with Denny Hamlin et al in terms of the points race.

I predict Dale Jr. to have another good finish and sooner or later he will break that losing streak. Also look for Carl Edwards to come from behind and challenge, he starts 21st today but has had some very good showings at Vegas in the past. Let's hope for a good race, Go Harvick!

RGIII and the Redskins

So the Redskins decided to pull the trigger and trade up for the 2nd pick in this year's draft. Now all we can do is wait watch to see if A. the trade holds up. and B. if this whole thing ends up as a positive for the struggling franchise. Personally I have stated that I do not think it is worth it to give up that much for one pick and I still believe that. Although I am not upset by this trade, I am more cautiously optimistic than anything else. The odds are in our favor that Griffin will at least be better than any qb we have had in the last 13 years so in terms of improving the position I think we will be okay. I just worry about how quickly we will be able to help RGIII get all the tools he needs to bring this team back to contention. With giving up our second round pick this year we will have to go to the free agent market to fill the biggest holes, in my opinion, which are wide receiver and offensive lineman. That could work out just fine as if the trade works out and we end up with RGIII we could be pretty attractive to some of the younger players in the league which hasn't been the case in the past. Most years we end up with older free agents who know Dan Snyder will help their retirement plans.

The other thing I worry about is whether we will end up with RGII or not. Many people assume that the Colts are gonna take Andrew Luck without question and the odds are that that will happen. However there is an outside chance that the Colts buy into the hype, see what we did to move up, and decide to use their pick on the most popular qb in the draft. Now the only downside to that, if you can call it one, is that we would end up with Andrew Luck I know it isn't really something to worry about, but being a Redskin fan I can see this trade blowing up in our face before we even get to draft in the two spot. I think Andrew Luck is a great qb as well but he is not who the Redskins are trading for and it would be interesting to see if they even kept the second pick if that situation happened. Just something to think about.

In the end I think we will be better for making this move. I don't think the Skins are done making moves before the draft and I expect they will be looking to replace that second round pick for this year as well as the number one for next year and the year after. Perhaps a sign and trade for Laron Landry will be in the works. It is hard to tell at this point, But Mike Shanahan doesn't normally part with picks without a plan to get them back somehow. It will be hard to get all those picks back but if the plan works well we get RGII, then get better on the field, then trade for other teams picks. If that all works we could end up with a franchise qb plus, if our record improves, we could receive better picks than we normally would have had through trades. Who knows how it will work out, but I will say this, RGIII will be on my back heading into the season in August. Let's hope the Redskins have turned in to geniuses and the days of these trades blowing up in our faces are in the rear view. Go SKINS!

On the road trying to keep up with the Hokies, O's, and Wizards.

My cousin and I are on a road trip to Houston this week which is the cause for the lack of posts. We saw ZZ Top at Reliant Stadium last night and we are heading back to Virginia today. Although I won't be back home until; Saturday night so watching any sports is still a ;ittle up in the air. Luckily I have my smart phone and am able to keep up for the most part, at least with updates if not actual video.

It looked the Hokies played well yesterday against Clemson. I am glad to see the type of game that Dorenzo Hudson had, I just hope he has finally realized that these are his last games and will keep it up for the entire tournament. Also Erick Green seemed to really take over. I wish i had been able to watch but it looks like I will have to wait until I get home to see the replay. That leads us to today and the matchup with Duke. Obviously I think we can beat Duke and I would think the boys are motivated as the only shot of getting to the tourney is winning the whole tournament and in order to get a good seed in any other tourney we better win this one at least. Of course it is going to be extremely tough to beat the dookies as Coach K always has them ready for these games. They are going for their fifth in a row and I am sure they will be motivated to play well heading into the NCAA tourney. Also we are without Vic Davila again which hurts on the inside. In the end this game will come down to energy and who is more focused. If Dorenzo shows up again along with EG and hopefully a big game from Cadarian Raines we might just pull this one out. Fingers Crossed. Go HOKIES!

I have been able to keep up with the O's spring training games pretty well thanks to updates from Roch Kubatko and the like. The O's look to be doing fairly well so far, these games are hard to get a read on, but in general the pitching looks to be keeping most teams down. The offense looks to be producing adequately as well for March. The big news for me is about Dylan Bundy and Jake Arrieta. The hype around Bundy is steadily picking up and although there is probably a zero chance to see him this year it is good to hear there is a little talent to come up in the minors. The news about Jake is all good because he had a bone spur removed and says that he has never felt better. Roch reported today that he threw 97 several times and in a post game interview said he felt like he could have gone the whole game. Of course it is still spring training and hearing guys brag about health at this point always puts me a little on edge but is still a good early sign of where he is at. Let's hope the O's keep it up on the field and build some momentum heading into the regular season. I heard the bad news about Nolan Reimold as well. Right now it is hard to tell how bad the hit he received on the left side of his face by a fastball is but I am sure he will be out for at least a week. This is terrible news for Reimold as it seems like he just has bad luck in terms of staying healthy and being able to contribute consistently. Hopefully he can leave the hospital soon and have a quick recovery. Go O's!

Lastly I missed the Lakers vs. Wizards game but I was following on my phone and was completely shocked by the final outcome. Not just because we beat the Lakers, but because we beat the Lakers after being down by 21 and we did it with mostly back ups from it looked like. Trevor Booker had a huge game and it looks like who ever played D against Kobe really showed up in the second half. It looks like Randy Wittman calling the team out after the Golden State game may have actually worked. All you can do is hope that it worked for more than game. We should find out Saturday against the Trail Blazers. Go Wizards!

Hokies vs. Clemson

Tonight the Hokies face off against the Clemson Tigers and look to salvage what is left of this season. Although to most I don't think these last couple of games mean much but I believe that these can be important building blocks towards next year. Obviously every game is a chance to improve and this team needs as much improvement and experience as it can get heading in to next year. I think these next two games specifically and the tournament could be huge for this team as the competition in particular could be difficult for us and provide valuable experience. Clemson has always been tough and especially at Little John. Hopefully the Hokies come out hot tonight and if they play as hard as they have been they could pick up a huge win for this team, on the road, in a hostile environment. I haven't looked at the stats too much for this one but I would expect the big match ups to be: first, Erick Green vs. whoever is guarding him. Duke certainly showed what a team focused on shutting him down can do. But in that game the rest of the team stepped up and kept the game as close as they could. The next big match up would have to be Cadarian Raines vs. Devin Booker. Devin isn't quite as good as his brother, in my opinion, but he is still a very solid post player who can score and make it hard for us to score at the same time. Cadarian has been huge in the last few games after Vic Davila had to sit down due to injury and let's hope he can continue at his current pace. If it wasn't for his high level of play in the dook game I fear that would have have been a blow out. This should be another close one, as they all seem to be, and. hopefully the basketball gods smile on us a bit to push us over the edge. Go HOKIES!  

Robert Griffin III and the Redskins

Almost everyone has weighed in on this issue and I figured I would as well. Obviously I have no real knowledge of the situation or how much interest the Redskins have in moving up in this draft to get Griffin. All I can do is say what I think would be the best plan for this team at this point in time. First I will say that RG3 is a great talent and you don't have to be an expert to see that. Also he seems like a great student and person. I haven't heard much about his past so I assume it can't be that bad if there is anything at all to worry about. His stock seems to continually rise which in turn continually raises the price for being able to draft him.

Of course the Redskins need a quarterback and the sooner the better. Watching Rex Grossman start almost every game last year was nothing short of painfull and John Beck was no better. And RG3 definitely seems to be a can't miss prospect and would be worth every penny to sign him. The issue I have is with what it would cost the Redskins outside of money to secure his services. Many are saying that it would take this year's first, next year's first, plus two more picks anywhere from round 2-5 in this year's draft. In my opinion that is just too steep for this team. If we were a quarterback, and only a quarterback away, from winning then this would make perfect sense. However anyone who watches the Skins knows that we are way more than just a quarterback away.

To start we need offensive lineman. to protect whatever quarterback we have back there. This has been the biggest factor determining how the skins perform in my opinion. I believe that if you have a great offensive line you don't have to have a great qb, you still need a good one, just not one you have to break the bank/draft for. I believe if you have a system like the Shanaplan which uses a strong running game first to set up things in the passing game you shouldn't need the second biggest arm in the draft. And of course that strong running game is driven by the offensive line. There are plenty of lineman available in this draft and I think it would be a much more prudent use of picks to draft down, get more picks, and select offensive lineman early and often. As hard as it is to find a franchise quarterback I feel it is equally hard to find a franchise lineman. Just recently the skins selected Trent Williams as their franchise left tackle and I think the only way to judge his sophomore year would be to say it was a complete failure. He didn't seem to take any steps forward and got suspended at the end of the year for four games, pathetic really. That is why you have to stock up on good lineman and use the later picks on skill positions. To me the game is still won in the trenches and if the skins had focused more on this instead of signing the Albert Haynesworth's of the world we would be a much better team now.

I know linemen aren't the sexy picks,  but if you want a winner it is the only way to go. Do you really want what the Panther's had last year? A great rookie qb and a crappy record to show for it. I think we should surround our new qb with what he needs before he gets here and that means protecting him first. If I were to guess right now, I would probably lean towards the Skins moving up, just because right when you think you know the plan it seems to change. Either way we should be better this year, I just think we would be betterer with as many picks as possible to build depth and provide protection for whoever the new qb will be. Go Redskins!

Crazy Daytona 500

So the race on Monday turned out to be a pretty memorable one and I was pretty dang close in predicting the winner. First, congrats to Matt Kenseth on the win, he seems to be one of the good ones in this sport and I don't mind him gettin to victory lane every now and again. Next, some congrats go to Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his second place finish. I know it must have killed his fans to see him finish so close but this is a great start to a new year for him. If Jimmie Johnson has more struggles like he did on Monday I would expect more resources to be funneled junior's way and he could end up in very good position at the end of the year.

To some of the bad, first there was Jimmie Johnson and Danica Patrick. I know it was Danica's fault but 3 wrecks in 3 races, do you think she's starting to think "hell maybe it's me"? It was nice to get Jimmie out of the way early although I am sure for some fans it was a little deflating to see him wreck so early. After all if your guy isn't running well and Jimmie is already done what do you root for? Which leads to Jeff Gordon's "engine situation" you know the more I think about it this may have been the perfect race except for the fact that a Ford won. Finally there was Juan Pablo Montoya vs. jet dryer truck. The jet dryer truck won and Juan Pablo is probably having the worst week he has ever had just due to the flurry of jokes that I am sure he has been dealing with on a daily basis. I know it wasn't his fault,  although I haven't heard what broke on his car to make that happen, but unfortunately he will forever be known as the guy who crashed under caution. Unless. he can start winning of course.

Kevin Harvick had a decent race and finished in 6th. I had hoped for a little better considering he started 13th but to survive this race at all is important enough and top tens are what keep you in the chase. I did have a hard time figuring out if he waited too long to make a move or he just didn't have a good enough car but it was probably a bit of both, as well as not having a good partner to make a move with. He did have a couple of nice pit stops which hopefully is a sign of things to come for this season. Next on the schedule is Phoenix International Raceway and qualifying should start tomorrow. Phoenix has been pretty good to Kevin and hopefully that trend will continue this weekend. In 18 career starts at Phoenix Kevin's average finish is 14 th with 7 top tens and 2 wins (both in 2006 for the season sweep).  He has also qualified well there with an average starting position of 19th.

Some predictions for this week: I think Harvick will get another top ten. I think Jimmie Johnson will continue to struggle, maybe it is wishfull thinking but I can't help but think that with the horrible finish on Monday combined with the penalties handed down by Nascar for chesting it is going to be hard for him and his team to start anew especially with his crew chief suspened. I also expect Dale Jr. to stay hot and challenge for another win. I just think this is going to be a break out year for him and if Hendrick starts focusing on him I feel that "the torch will be passed" and you can look for some shuffling to go on after this season. Let's hope for a good race and hopefully they only fill up the jet fuel dryers half way this week. Just in case.