NASCAR: No easy solutions after complete playoff embarrassment

There has been a debate about the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs since day one. And by day one, we don't mean day one of the 2024 playoffs, the 2024 season, or even the introduction of the modern format in 2014. We mean day one of the playoff era in 2004.

Ever since Cup Series championships started being decided by a postseason format as opposed to a season-long championship format, there have been complaints from fans that titles are no longer "legitimate".

In 21 seasons of playoffs, there have only been eight occasions on which the drivers crowned champion were the same as the drivers who actually scored the most points throughout the 36-race season. In 11 seasons of the current format, there have only been three, and it hasn't happened since 2021.

Championships are, of course, earned, not deserved. There is no such thing as an "undeserving" or "illegitimate" champion, as everybody plays by the exact same rules. Like the NFL or MLB, there is nothing that requires the team with the best regular season record to win it all.

The question is whether or not NASCAR is rewarding the right things when it comes to crowning a champion.

In the past, they have gotten away with the format. Drivers who would have finished in second or third in points, for instance, winning championships isn't viewed as that big of a negative. The "best of the best" still rose to the occasion when it mattered most. Jimmie Johnson didn't win five titles in a row by accident, even if only two of them were unofficial "points titles".

But the 2024 championship battle unfolded in what was, quite frankly, an egregious manner when it came to actually determining a champion.

No, it wasn't as egregious as some of the potential scenarios we outlined before the playoffs started. But in terms of scenarios that are actually realistic, this one has to be up there.

Joey Logano finished the regular season standings behind three drivers who didn't even make the playoffs. He would not have even gotten in if not for a five-overtime win, in which he held off Zane Smith, the driver who, at the time, was 34th (last) place in the standings.

Considering the fact that the driver who actually finished last in points, Harrison Burton, made the playoffs due to a superspeedway win, arguing that Logano, the 15th place driver, didn't earn his spot in a 16-driver playoff format would be silly.

But Logano was eliminated after the round of 12. The top eight drivers in total points advanced to the round of 8 – or so we thought.

Logano ended up advancing after all, when Alex Bowman was disqualified.

And in the round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NASCAR's 15th place driver punched his ticket to the Championship 4, making it six for six in even-numbered years. Then after two weeks of meaningless playoff NASCAR racing for the driver of the No. 22 Ford, he won again at Phoenix Raceway to clinch his third title.

Even with a three-win postseason which saw him competing for absolutely nothing in four of the nine races leading up to the Championship 4, Logano only finished in 11th place in total points.

If a NASCAR Cup Series championship is really the "toughest championship to win", as the NBC team stated at Phoenix, how does it go to a driver who can't even finish top 10 in points?

Again, is NASCAR really rewarding the right things?

The obvious answer is no. Sure, Logano's four wins were second among all drivers, and the modern format is all about winning. But if that were totally true, Kyle Larson would have at least been in the Championship 4, since he won six races (despite missing one).

And considering the fact that Senior Vice President of Competition of NASCAR Elton Sawyer inexplicably said that this format requires drivers to bring their A-game every week, it's fairly obvious that there's a disconnect between what NASCAR wants to reward and what NASCAR is actually rewarding.

Because with eight finishes outside of the top 30 and another seven outside of the top 20, Logano and the No. 22 team didn't bring their A-game every week.

Logano even admitted that their race to the championship basically started with the round of 8 opener at Las Vegas. That's eight months after the season started, 32 races into the season – after he was already "eliminated", and with just four races remaining on the schedule.

Logano's 17.1 average finish – in a series that has 34 full-time drivers – is the worst among all 76 Cup Series champions. In fact, it's roughly three positions worse than the next worst on the list.

It seems like NASCAR is the only one not seeing that.

But this isn't a knock on Logano. He did earn the championship. He did what everybody else couldn't. He and the No. 22 team worked their way through the postseason and used the format to their advantage, just as they did in 2018 and 2022. Nobody else did that, period.

If you have an issue with the format, don't hate the player. Hate the game.

The problem is that there is no easy solution. Any modification to the playoff format would still result in complaints from fans, no matter what. There would still be an argument that NASCAR isn't rewarding the right things.

I've been hearing more and more fans clamor for a return to the 10-race playoff format from pre-2014. Yet during those 10 seasons, there were still plenty of complaints.

Even a season-long format is out of the question in this day and age, due to the introduction of stage racing. It is theoretically possible for a driver to win all 36 races and finish 11th in the standings due to stage racing.

Surely that would be taken well on social media.

Bottom line, there is no way to give everybody what they want. Some want wins valued more than others. Others want stages gone. Others want a Winston Cup era points format. Others want playoff rounds that are longer than three races. Others want a championship that is more than one race.

You get the idea. There is no way to create a format in which the championship-winning driver is unequivocally the top driver in the eyes of all fans.

It is also worth pointing out that there are biases to consider. Whether we want to admit it or not, there are a lot of complaints that wouldn't otherwise be complaints if the drivers were different.

Had it been someone other than Logano who won this year's title from outside of the top 10, there would surely still have been complaints. But they wouldn't have been nearly as loud.

NASCAR isn't going to react to angry fans on social media who will go out of their way to find ways to be angry regardless.

However, the fact that NASCAR's 11th place driver was just crowned champion should surely raise some eyebrows, especially considering their one big argument in favor of the current format was effectively shut down by a driver who just recorded the most inconsistent, non-A-game championship-winning season in the history of the Cup Series.

Logano's championship coming just days after Sawyer's comments was, for lack of a better word, an embarrassment for NASCAR.

Whether they admit it or not, the format is not doing what they think it is, aside from the "Game 7" moment that everyone always talks about. The difference between a NASCAR "Game 7" and a World Series Game 7, however, is that World Series Games 1 through 6 actually matter.

How can NASCAR create something similar on their side? It certainly wouldn't be easy, and it would surely spark additional complaints regardless. It's a lose-lose.

Yet even with no changes, fans are probably still going to watch. And for that reason, there is no reason to expect any changes in the near future, even after a relatively embarrassing culmination to the 2024 season in which 10 drivers finished with more points over the 36-race season than the champion did.