Armchair Analyst: On the radar for Week 23 of the MLS season

I made a number of bad predictions back in February and March, as we were previewing the season. Vancouver, I figured, would win MLS Cup (they may not even make the playoffs). Harry Shipp would have a break-out year in Montreal (he's only been OK, nothing more and nothing less). And the New England Revolution would win the Supporters' Shield.

That last one is the one that gets me, because my reasoning was right but the team I picked was wrong. I went with the Revs, who host Philadelphia on Saturday (7:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE), because, objectively speaking, the Eastern Conference is weaker than the West. And while I'd always been skeptical of the New England defense, that same defense had put out fire after fire en route to an MLS Cup appearance in 2014, followed by a too-brief trip to the playoffs in 2015. They were always scrambling, but they always scrambled well enough to stay in the game, and often enough they'd outright win.

My theory for 2016 was they'd scramble less and defend as a unit more, that they'd improve since Andrew Farrell had a full year under his belt in central defense; that they'd improve since Scott Caldwell, Kelyn Rowe, Diego Fagundez and Juan Agudelo all entered their primes and were pretty natural fits together; since Lee Nguyen was still an MVP candidate; and since they'd replaced Jermaine Jones with younger, more reliably healthy options in central midfield.

For one reason and/or another, none of the above has come to pass. The Revs enter Saturday's game against the Union desperately clinging to the sixth spot in the East and in real danger of falling out of the playoff race if they don't start stringing together a few wins.

I still maintain that my baseline thinking – that the East's relative weakness would decide the Shield race – was correct. I just backed the wrong horse, and should've gone with Toronto FC instead.

It was a risk to do so (and still is), but here's what I missed: The veteran-led defense of Drew Moor and Steven Beitashour would come together so quickly; Sebastian Giovinco would be godly for a second consecutive year; and that the kids would improve so, so much.

That last one is the big one, and by "big" I mean undeniably massive. From Alex Bono in goal to Eriq Zavaleta in central defense to Marky Delgado, Jay Chapman and a cast of thousands in midfield, and to Jordan Hamilton up top, almost every significant "depth" player on the Reds is better than they were in 2015. That speaks to something more than just raw talent. That tells me that, pedagogically, Greg Vanney, Robin Fraser et al are doing something right.

And so they've weathered both the toughest parts of their schedule and prolonged absences to some of their most important pieces (Michael Bradley, Will Johnson, Clint Irwin, Jozy Altidore, Benoit Cheyrou), and now come into the final third of the season both atop the East in points per game and ready to carve their own path into November. They'll travel to Houston on Saturday (9 pm ET; MLS LIVE in the US | TSN4 in Canada) staring at a stretch of four road games in five outings, then finish up with five of six at BMO Field.

Theirs is not an appreciably easier schedule than the rest of the league's, but they're playing the league's best soccer. Even when they're not scoring, they're an absolute delight right now:

TFC have the league's best record since the Copa América break ended, and the depth to weather any further bumps in the road. While the Western Conference leaders will be cannibalizing each other from here on out, TFC have their chance to catch up to them by the end of August, and then put some distance on the rest of the field down the stretch.

I'm a man of my word so I can't officially change my preseason prediction – I chose the Revs back in the winter, so that's who I have to stick with and take my L – but as of now, I think TFC are the Shield favorites.

Now onto the other stuff on my radar:

Supermassive Black Hole

One consolation I can take from my Revs pick is that they qualified for the US Open Cup final thanks to a 3-1 win over the Chicago Fire on Tuesday evening. Clearly I was right about them contending for a trophy, I just picked the wrong one.

For the Fire, the loss essentially ended the competitive portion of their 2016 season, and now they have to be fully invested in identifying the core they intend to build around come 2017 and beyond. I'm good with their backline as constructed (Rodrigo Ramos's brainfart on the New England opener notwithstanding), and I'm still the charter member of the Matt Polster d-mid fan club.

What I'm not a fan of is this team's allergy to attacking via any route except counters through David Accam. They're last or second-to-last in just about every relevant category associated with "creativity":

And while they're not keeping the worst company in the world down there, 1) they don't have the likes of Robbie Keane, Gyasi Zardes and Gio Dos Santos finishing the few quality chances that are created; and 2) LA's numbers are affected by game states. The Galaxy tend to lead a lot, which means they naturally absorb more pressure (more than they should – which is another column for another time) and spend less time purely on attack. Chicago are afforded no such luxuries.

The above is compounded by their lack of raw playmaking talent in central midfield. None of Polster, Razvan Cocis, Arturo Alvarez, Michael Stephens or Nick LaBrocca is really a No. 10, but they've all played there at times. John Goossens kind of is, but only kind of. To put it into context: Jordan Morris created twice as many "big chances" last week (4) as Goossens has all season. And Homegrown Collin Fernandez, whose strong training camp reportedly helped push Shipp onto the trade block, was just loaned to St. Louis FC of the USL for the rest of the season.

There are no answers for the Fire, which is fine in a vacuum. The issue is that this hasn't happened in a vacuum, it's happened during the course of a long season, and said answers look just as far away in mid-August as they were on March 1.

Clock's ticking, folks. That'll continue on Sunday when they host Orlando City (4 pm ET; UniMás in the US | MLS LIVE in Canada).

I'll also be watching: "Counter through Accam" might not be such a bad idea against the lead-footed OCSC backline after the show Morris put on last weekend. I'm curious to see if Jason Kreis will drop his defense deeper, or continue to have them push.

Uprising

One of the issues with analytics is embedded in one of my factoids above. Namely, that Morris got the credit for all those chances generated by the Sounders last week, and not a certain Uruguayan No. 10.

Nicolas Lodeiro played the most important ball on two of Clint Dempsey's three goals:

And here on Nelson Valdez's impossible miss:

And on Flaco Fernandez's post:

Morris made a great, simple run on each of those plays, and showed the type of awareness that had been missing from his game up until Lodeiro started giving him all that space to work with. He will continue to break backlines, and he will continue to pick up assists, and those assists will count the exact same as a Mauro Diaz through-ball or a Chris Tierney cross or a Gyasi Zardes flick-on. I'm not disparaging Morris here – his skillset is distinct and valuable, and I rate him as the second-best young forward in the league. Developing and signing him was a coup for the Sounders.

My point is that the analytics movement in our game is in its infancy, and to tell the truth, the stuff that we have access to both externally and internally barely scratches the surface of what forward-thinking teams are churning out behind closed doors. Teams are able to track the starting points of runs and relative acceleration; the number of seconds per pass teams default to; the literal physical gap between, say, Lodeiro and the nearest defender when he receives the ball. All of it is in there, and all of it helps tell a story with more precision than the paintbrush I'm Jackson Pollocking all over this column.

WITH THAT SAID... here's a stat that I think means something: In the 19 games before Lodeiro arrived, the Sounders created 1.1 big chances per match. In the two since he stepped on the field, that number has ballooned to 3.5 per – which would, by far, be the biggest number in MLS this decade (as far back as we have data).

I said all season long that Seattle were building good possession but lacked the central brain who could turn it into penetration of the sort that leads to goals. They've now obviously found their man, and while the red line is still a long ways away, eight points out with 12 to play and two in hand is far from impossible.

If they spend the rest of August playing as well as they have the last two weeks, they will rise and it'll put the fear of God into the rest of the Western Conference. We'll see how it goes on Sunday when RSL visit (7 pm ET; FS1 in the US | MLS LIVE in Canada).

I'll also be watching: Where's Javier Morales getting the ball? Heading into stoppage time of the San Jose game on July 22 he was approaching 14 hours (!!!) of action without a shot on goal. Then he scored, took another shot... and in the three games since he's been much better about getting on the ball back in his old stomping grounds. He now has three goals and two assists in his last four, and has resurrected RSL after a pretty miserable early-summer homestand.

That moment when you realize you didn't die.

Happy weekending, everybody.