Offseason Ends Not With A Bang But A Whimper

There were rumors going around a week ago that we could see up to 3 signings this week.  In the end we saw none.  As we saw yesterday the Koomson deal is at last in trouble if not dead.  Rumor has it that Adjel-Boateng is signed but they're waiting for his visa paperwork to be complete before they announce it.  There's been no update on Gordon since the initial report.

And that's it.  There has been literally no other rumors of signings this offseason.  Camp opens on Monday do the last business day of the offseason is complete and our total additions amount to 2 homgrown signings in Ford and Perez.  No slight intended on those guys but I'm not impressed.  We let 7 players go from last season and we're entering camp with 2 new homegrown signings, 4 draftees, and no other additions.

Sadly while I'm not impressed I'm also not surprised.  This is the MO for the Rapids in recent years.  They appear to do no work in the offseason (not that they aren't working, just that there are no public moves), camp opens, we sign players and get them into camp late, and then we hope they can figure out how to play together before the regular season starts.  On average over the last 6 seasons we start camp with less than 4 new non-draftees.  In 2012 we had none, in 2015 we had a high of seven.  Last year we had three (Azira, Pappa, and Pfeffer).

Last season we heard a lot about "having the team together to start camp" from Paul Bravo and in the past we heard talk about getting difference-makers in the offseason.  This offseason the Front Office has been very quiet and didn't set any unrealistic expectations or goals they didn't meet.  That said, we need players and we need them soon.  I think we need more than Adjel-Boateng and Gordon.

Adjel-Boateng looks like a good long-term project but expecting him to be the necessary difference maker this year is asking a lot.  He's had 16 goals in 85 appearances in Norway, which is a league I think most would agree is a bit below MLS at this point.  For comparison that's almost exactly the same ratio as Badji's in MLS (8 goals in 42 appearances).  Adjel-Boateng is two years younger so I think he can be better than Badji, but I don't expect a great improvement this season.  Gordon is a great supersub for 15 minutes at the end of games and his poacher's mentality will steal us points 2-3 times this season but he's not going to fix our fundamental scoring problem,

The Front Office needs to sign somebody that's going to add 10 goals this season, either by scoring themselves or setting up Gashi & Doyle to score more goals.  Without that we're looking at another year of grinding out 1-0 wins and I don't think our success from last season is sustainable.