Playoff Power Rankings: Is second title in store for ‘Rowdy’?

NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the 2019 NASCAR Playoffs field after the regular-season finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and ahead of the postseason opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

16. Aric Almirola (-2): Almirola has been shut out of the top 10 since Daytona and he's going to need to find a way back in if he plans on advancing. His first nine starts at Vegas produced no such results, but the last three -- the ones with Stewart-Haas Racing -- have all been top 10s.

15. Ryan Newman (+2): Newman has the most winless starts at Vegas (20), but landed an eighth-place run at Indy to squeeze into the postseason. He's shown spurts of being a top-10 car on a consistent basis this season -- if he can muster that again in the coming months he'll be tough to bounce.

14. Ryan Blaney (-3): Disregarding a crash at Daytona (36th-place finish), Blaney has just one finish worse than 13th since Kansas, in May. That consistency will pay off in the playoffs and he should contend at Vegas, where he had four straight top-seven finishes before a P22 in the spring.

13. William Byron (--): Though he's yet to string together a long stretch of strong finishes, it's clear Byron and crew chief Chad Knaus are dialed in at the moment. Could the 21-year-old actually make a postseason run? I don't know, but one thing I do know is that I wouldn't bet against Knaus and a surging, talented driver when the intensity is ramping up.

12. Alex Bowman (--): Since his remarkable stretch of three straight runner-ups, Bowman has just four top 10s in 14 races. It's possible things could turn around for him once the spotlight hits, but things appear to be trending in the wrong direction.

11. Kyle Larson (-3): Larson is on pace for his worst average finish (15.2) since he missed the playoffs in 2015, but he's actually been on a roll lately despite his Indy crash. The five races before that he averaged a 4.8 finish and could make some noise in the coming months, though he's in a bit of a points hole compared to the top of the field.

10. Erik Jones (--): Jones started first and finished last in Vegas' fall race last year, an unfortunate accomplishment. His recent runs have been a similarly full spectrum of results, with a win at Darlington and results of 18th, 22nd and 39th at Michigan, Bristol and Indy, respectively.

9. Clint Bowyer (+6): Bowyer has a subpar record at Vegas (just two top-10 finish since 2012) but has really strung together a nice recent run in some pretty big, pressure-filled spots. Given teammate Kevin Harvick and his similar equipment are obviously picking up steam as well, the jovial veteran could have a deep postseason run ahead of him.

8. Kurt Busch (-1): Hometown boy Busch tends to have speed at Vegas in the early going, but the results don't show it (21.5 average finish). He has just five top 10s in 19 starts, so if he manages to steer the ship in the right direction here we know he might be onto something the rest of the way.

7. Chase Elliott (+2): The bad: Elliott has an average finish of 24.0 at Vegas with no laps led. The good: In the two of five Vegas starts in which he hasn't crashed, Elliott has averaged a finish of 6.0. If he can keep it clean, Sunday could be a playoff kick-start.

6. Brad Keselowski (--): Keselowski missed out on repeating as Indy winner (instead he put a discount on some tires) but he has another great shot to repeat this weekend. The Team Penske driver almost always has speed at Vegas and has the most wins there (three) among any playoff driver. Jimmie Johnson has four, but, well, you know.

5. Martin Truex Jr. (--): Truex has been shut out of the top 10 for three straight races for the first time since the Roval to Talladega last year, and it's not coming at a great time for the No. 19 team. Truex won at Vegas in 2017, so perhaps he rekindles some old fire there to get things going before it's too late.

4. Denny Hamlin (-2): Hamlin has been nothing short of exceptional since post-Daytona and got back on the horse with a sixth-place finish at Indy after a rough Darlington weekend. A case could be made that he's the title favorite. Let's revisit this in a few weeks.

3. Joey Logano (--): After finally cracking the top 10 again after five straight clunkers, I'm pretty confident in saying Logano gets hot from here and is among those leading the charge to Homestead. He's a solid pick to win this weekend after taking the checkered flag in the spring en route to a seventh straight Vegas top 10 to round out his series-best 8.5 average finish.

2. Kevin Harvick (+2): Harvick is rounding into championship form and hitting on all cylinders at the right time. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver won the spring Vegas race last year and led the most laps from the pole there earlier this year.

1. Kyle Busch (--): Congrats to 'Rowdy', who was officially on top of the Power Rankings the entire regular season -- since Texas last fall, to be exact. Though the 2019 winless drought stretches back to Pocono-1, Busch might actually be enjoying the most consistently excellent season of his career. A series-best 8.2 average finish is also on pace to be a career-best, and I have a hard time thinking that number won't shrink some more by virtue of a few more trips to Victory Lane -- perhaps even to hoist a Cup championship -- the rest of the way.