When I was trying to devise potential poll questions for this week’s show, I may have stumbled upon our most interesting one so far: Who will make the playoffs first: Dale Earnhardt Jr. or the Washington Redskins?

The similarities between the driver and the NFL team are eerie.

The Redskins last reached the postseason two years ago, using an improbable run through the month of December to win their final four regular-season games. During the winning streak, they even shocked the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants 22-10 in Giants Stadium.

But the playoff stay didn’t last long. The Redskins rallied to take a 14-13 fourth-quarter lead in Seattle before two costly interceptions by Todd Collins were returned for touchdowns in the Seahawks’ 35-14 victory.

A month after that game in Daytona, Dale Earnhardt Jr. rolled to a victory in the Budweiser Shootout in his first race driving for car owner Rick Hendrick. He added a victory in a Daytona 500 qualifying race, and it seemed winning races and potentially his first championship might not be that unrealistic.

The victories proved to be few and far between—his only points win to date with Hendrick was at Michigan in June 2008 on a fuel-mileage gamble—but for most of the 2008 season, he paced a Hendrick team that seemed to struggle through the regular season. In fact, he was third in the points standings—and ahead of all of his teammates—with two regular-season races remaining.

He opened that Chase with a fifth-place finish at New Hampshire, but he was never much of a factor afterward. Finishes of 28th at Talladega, 36th at Concord and 41st at Homestead relegated him to 12th in the playoffs.

Fast forward to 2009. The Redskins have lost to four winless teams in their first six games, quarterback Jason Campbell already has been benched once, and there’s speculation coach Jim Zorn could lose his job at any time. For now, he’s only relinquished play-calling duties.

Earnhardt’s performances have been arguably worse. Despite a change at crew chief from Tony Eury Jr. to Lance McGrew, he’s led laps in only two of the past 22 races, and the highlight was leading 41 at Kansas, where he eventually finished 36th.

So who will emerge to respectability and into the playoff picture more quickly?

My bet is on Earnhardt, and not because NASCAR will change the rules to help him, as R&R Racing co-host George Templeton joked on the show this week. Considering Junior has now missed the playoffs three of the past five years, either NASCAR President Mike Helton isn’t doing his job, or the sanctioning body’s primary goal isn’t to make sure Earnhardt is involved in the postseason.

Now, I know Earnhardt’s and Jeff Gordon’s omission from the playoffs in 2005 played a major role in the field expanding to 12 drivers. But there’s no evidence that NASCAR is going out of its way to help Junior win races, because the results aren’t there.

But I think he has too much talent and has too good of a car owner to think he’ll be shut out again next year. You may forget he has 18 Cup wins, and 17 were without Hendrick horsepower. It’s difficult to believe those were all because of good fortune.

What’s ended being his undoing so far at Hendrick was his and Eury’s reluctance to use the setups that have worked so well Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and now Mark Martin. I’m surprised Hendrick didn’t make the change mandatory when Earnhardt joined the team, but I guess when dealing with the cash cow that Junior has become in this sport, you might not be as quick to demand those kinds of changes.

At any rate, McGrew’s cars have helped Earnhardt run more competitively as the season has gone along. Bad luck has cost him some decent finishes, but the improvement is striking enough to believe he’ll move back into the top 12 next season. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t deserve that ride anymore.

By contrast, as long as the Redskins have been owned by Daniel Snyder, nothing has consistently kept Washington a playoff fixture.

Not the addition of a superstar college coach—Steve Spurrier, who went 12-20 in the 2002 and ‘03 seasons. Not the return of coaching legend Joe Gibbs, who walked away after getting the team back into the playoffs in the fourth year of his return.

You could make the case Snyder should have just stuck with Marty Schottenheimer, who won eight of his final 11 games in 2001 despite having a good chunk of the salary cap already eaten because of big-dollar, free-agent busts in previous years. But Snyder tossed him aside for the latest flavor of the month, Spurrier.

Would they have won in the postseason with Schottenheimer? Probably not. But winning consistently in the regular season is better than not winning at all.

So now, knowing Snyder’s track record, will a winning head coach want to mess with the public spectacle that is the owner of the Washington Redskins?

We do know this: if both aren’t in the playoffs next season, you can expect major changes sooner than later.

So who do you think will make the playoffs first? Click here to cast your vote.

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So who will make the playoffs first: Dale Earnhardt Jr. or the Washington Redskins? I’m betting on the 88.