{"id":196157,"date":"2025-09-03T06:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/196157\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T06:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:45:11","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-names-nascar-playoff-drivers-in-trouble-ones-to-watch-after-darlington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/196157\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. names NASCAR playoff drivers in trouble, ones to watch after Darlington"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coming off the first NASCAR<\/strong><\/a> Cup Series playoff race of the season, Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/strong> is already crunching the numbers. Who will make it to the Round of 12?<\/p>\n

The former racing star turned team owner and analyst opened up on the topic, highlighting two drivers that are in a less than ideal situation right now. Neither should come as a surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh Berry<\/strong> is in a tough spot,\u201d Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download<\/a>. \u201cWrecked on the first lap of the race, car bottomed out really bad. Did you see that? Wasn\u2019t that weird? Well, that cost him a great finish. But dude, I mean when I look at this, nobody\u2019s in big trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cBerry, (Alex) Bowman<\/strong> at -19. You can\u2019t have another bad race, then it\u2019s over. But I think if you\u2019re Bowman or Berry and you come out of St. Louis at -10 or better, how are you feeling? All you\u2019re trying to do is give yourself a shot. I don\u2019t see how Bowman or Berry looking at \u2026 SVG <\/strong>\u2026 looking at the rest of these guys, man. You\u2019re not talking about making gains on the field, you\u2019re talking about making gains on the top 12.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing that was interesting was that one driver currently below the playoff cut line is almost a sure thing to end up on the right side of the line when it comes down to the Round of 12, Earnhardt said. That\u2019s Joey Logano<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Earnhardt and his co-host agreed Logano is likely to advance past this round. \u201cJoey\u2019s taking a spot,\u201d Earnhardt said.<\/p>\n

For the drivers below the current playoff cut line, Earnhardt noted they might need some help. The drivers in front of them might have to trip up to open a window.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys are going to have to have problems,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cBut you have, basically, (Ross) Chastain<\/strong> at +21 is pretty comfortable. From eighth on forward I think, barring any massive issue, they\u2019re cruising through this round.\u201d<\/p>\n

So who might end up below the playoff cut line if one or two of the drivers currently below fight their way up? Earnhardt and his co-host disagreed on whether Austtin Cindric<\/strong> fits the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cCindric, I think (Christopher) Bell<\/strong>\u2018s good enough at +11 to not have to be concerned,\u201d Earhnhardt said. \u201cChase Elliott<\/strong>\u2018s consistent enough at +9. So I mean Cindric and SVG, who we all were talking about might miss the next round, those are the only two guys that I see any of these four down here \u2014 Logano, (Austin) Dillon<\/strong>, Bowman, Berry \u2014 I only see two guys, two spots available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnhardt defended the idea that Cindric might slip up, which was something his co-host didn\u2019t see happening. He explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cCindric could have a rough day,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cHe shows up sometimes and will run 12th, he\u2019ll show up some other times and run 28th. I just haven\u2019t seen enough over the course of the last several years to really know Cindric\u2019s going to be a lock.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if Logano out-pointed Cindric and then someone else out-pointed SVG? It\u2019s only 15 (points). Can Logano out-point Cindric, 15 points in the next two weeks?\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see. But there is certainly no shortage of interesting storylines at play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming off the first NASCAR Cup Series playoff race of the season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is already crunching…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":76057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-196157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115139020342319464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}