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If you remember nothing else I've said in my 11 years with ESPN, you should remember this: The single-biggest adjustment any team can make to its race car is the driver. A couple of decades ago, an annual flood of driver changes created an expression we refer to today as Silly Season, though the flurry of activity has largely been absent since the great recession in large part because there has been very little new money coming into the sport and thus minimizing the leveraging of change. This year feels different with some brand names who are seeking employment in 2018, and it's only early August. Former champions Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch lead the list, and on Monday, Kasey Kahne was added to NASCAR's free-agency ranks. There is sure to be more movement by year's end, but these three drivers headline opportunities for team owners. Kenseth, Busch and Kahne are three drivers I hold in high regard and who have much to offer an organization despite all being toward the late innings of their careers. And Kenseth, to some degree, is defying age by competing well at 45. Here's my case for hiring each of these three drivers, as each has something different to offer, each requires a different environment to succeed and each brings something different to the equation. As mentioned, Kenseth is productive for his age. He's extremely talented, among the most talented drivers I've ever competed against, but you wouldn't know it in part because he's never the loudest guy in the room and he just gets the job done year after year after year. This was most evident to the world when Kenseth surprisingly left the only home he ever knew -- Roush Fenway Racing -- and lit it up in his first year competing with Joe Gibbs Racing.  Kenseth wins the big races -- Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Southern 500 -- but he wouldn't fit in just anywhere because he deserves a quality opportunity, especially in what I consider to be his final two Cup seasons. If team owner Rick Hendrick chose Kenseth to bridge the gap while William Byron logs a few more miles, Kenseth would reward Hendrick the same way Mark Martin did late in his career. Kenseth has the résumé, the will and the ability to compete for another title if he gets the nod from Hendrick soon -- so, watch out! Frame of mind matters for every driver, and it's the only thing Kenseth is missing to finish off a brilliant career. Hendrick won't hire Busch, but someone else should. Busch can drive the hell out of a race car. Years ago, a close friend named Roy McCauley (with Penske for more than a decade), who engineered my Martinsville and Darlington wins, told me Busch had the greatest feel for a race car of anyone he had ever been exposed to. That's high praise from a guy who has worked with some of the best the world has seen in NASCAR and open wheel. Of course I understand it. I've gone toe-to-toe with Busch, and while most people remember our battle at Darlington (2003) where I prevailed by a few inches, Busch is a better driver than me, a former champion and the defending Daytona 500 winner. For whatever reason, Busch doesn't seem capable of staying in one place for an extended period of time -- Stewart-Haas Racing will not pick up his option for 2018 -- and that's the bad news. But the good news is, Busch seems at his best when the opportunity is fresh and vibrant. If I were a car owner -- I'd be eager to lock up Busch and sign him to a one-year deal, two at the most. Busch needs to feel needed, wanted, and he operates best with a chip on his shoulder. Kahne was the college phenom athlete every pro team wanted. Throughout his big league career there have been times when the stage seemed a bit too big, and the lights a bit too bright, for his personality.  His best years were driving for Ray Evernham when he didn't have the burden of being teamed with "the best our sport has ever seen." Whether you agree with the attitude that Jimmie Johnson is the greatest of all time matters very little in this context. I'm telling you that's what it feels like when you're constantly reminded that your cars are the same as your teammates -- the same teammates who are kicking everyone's backside week after week after week. Being teamed with Jeff Gordon in 1997 and 1998 was mentally exhausting for me. I've never reviewed more opinions of what I was doing wrong, without ever soliciting one. Kahne can drive, really well in fact, but not as well as Hendrick Motorsports teammate Johnson. But then again, no one else who has shared the asphalt against the seven-time Cup champ drives as well. It's brutal to be compared to another driver, but inevitable when you are teamed with one who has won several championships. Kahne is an asset, and his Brickyard 400 makes him a viable option for a contending team. I didn't enjoy Silly Season during my driving career, not even when I benefited from it. I always acknowledged it as a necessary element of the business that other major sports refer to as free agency. From where I stand today, I wish our sport would rename it and would establish a window during which drivers could become available or even traded. Silly Season sounds grandfathered and too unusual to engage new fans. To that end -- the only part of the phrase I would embrace is how "silly" it would be for any of these three drivers to be unemployed in 2018 as they're all too damn good relative to most of their colleagues. A playoff-contending team in need of a playoff-worthy driver would be missing an enormous opportunity by not hiring one of these three veterans, even if it meant buying out the final year of their current driver's contract.
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