Ice Cold (Draft) Facts

You still have a few minutes to vote in this week's lineup polls. Remember that the winners will represent the People's Pitstop this weekend at Richmond International Raceway, and the ones who qualify the best on Friday will start for us in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
In the meantime, we, like most of the non-British world, turn our eyes to the National Football League draft. If you follow NFL football at all, you know that this is one of the most exciting times of the year. All the folks selected between now and Saturday evening are full of potential. Not a single one has proven a bust yet. Not a single one has been busted for codeine possession. Not a single one has ... well, you know.
But the perspective is just a bit different if you are a fantasy football player. That's because most of the folks marching across the stage (or fielding phone calls at home) this weekend will not be in your fantasy lineup immediately. Last season, the top-scoring fantasy rookie was Sam Bradford, with 180. Yes, he got the keys to the St. Louis Rams offense almost as soon as he walked off the stage at Radio City Music Hall. But he ranked only 20th among quarterbacks in terms of fantasy points. That means that if he was in your fantasy starting lineup, you were desperate, stupid or this guy.
Someday, one of these draft picks may prove to be the cornerstone of a fantasy title-winning team. But you shouldn't be lining up to take Cam Newton in August, even if the Carolina Panthers can start force-feeding him the playbook right away.
We'll be back with the poll results.

Counting down to racing (and the draft)

As these words are being typed, we're a little over an hour away from this week's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway, though you might not know it. (We'll have some thoughts on that later this week.)

Thanks to the fantasy football fans who shared their plans for this year's NFL Draft. The results appear below. We have a new poll up about what the St. Louis Rams should do with the very first pick in this year's draft. That poll will close Thursday, which is also when the National Football League will hold the first round of its draft. By the way, the "G. McCoy" in our latest poll refers to Gerald of Oklahoma, not Colt of Texas.

If you have access to a computer during today's race, feel free to join us in Yahoo's race chat, featuring Jay Busbee and Jay Hart of From the Marbles fame.

[polldaddy poll=3030960]