On to 2026

Well, the season ended about how I predicted.  Dallas and FSL getting in, us missing out.  For a brief 2 minutes in the second half the Rapids were in a playoff spot, only to once again give out a late goal and only get 1 point.  Story of the season really.

Back on September 12th with 5 games left I pegged the target as 42 points.  Colorado reached 41 points and lost out on the tiebreaker (twice).  42 was the necessary total.  44 would have gotten us a home wild-card game.  For comparison the 9th placed team the last 6 years (ignoring the 2020 COVID mess) has gotten 42-47 points.  The last time the line was 41 was in 2018 when there were only 24 teams.  That means there were 102 less games played in the league, and 200-300 less points distributed.  Any team that failed to make the playoffs in the West this year stunk.

Looking at how Colorado failed to reach the promised land, take a look at this.  This is the point totals of the 4 teams in contention this week against the other 7 teams in the bottom half of the West.

• Dallas: 25
• FSL: 24
• San Jose: 21
• Colorado: 18

No coincidence that order is the order the four teams finished in.  Dropping points against Kansas City, the Galaxy, Dallas, and FSL, all in the last 7 games of the season, is what killed us.

The reality is though, whichever one of these four teams that would have gotten through tomorrow night's wild-card game is just a sacrifice to San Diego in the first round.  Really none of these teams deserved a playoff spot.

So, forward to 2026.  The biggest question looming over the team is will the mini-donuts be back again next season?  No, that's not it.  Its will Chris Armas be back.  For our purposes though, the question is, should Armas be back?

This is a tough call.  Armas clearly understands the importance of culture and even late into the second half on Saturday the players were playing hard and weren't giving up.  Those are points in his favor, as is the fact that he knows the reality of coaching in Colorado and what the challenge is, as well as a knowledge of the current roster.

Stacked against him are the results.  Armas was brought in after Fraser was fired.  Over the course of Robin's time here he averaged 1.4 PPG.  That was considered not good enough and we moved on (to be fair, it was clear Fraser had lost the locker room).  Armas, in his two seasons, has averaged 1.34 PPG.  Not an improvement over Fraser.  The difference is about 2 points a season, exactly what we missed the playoffs by.

There's also Armas' lineups and tactics.  His defensive strategies are awful.  Over the last two seasons the Rapids have given up 116 goals, despite having multiple TAM players on the back line.  The only other two years that we gave up that many goals were the two years that started with Anthony Hudson in charge.  Not somebody you want to be compared to.  There's also the problem of ending the season regularly playing Cole Bassett, arguably our best midfielder after Mihailovic left, out of position.  Cole is not a left winger, he's best as a 8.  Paxton Aaronson also talked after Saturday's game how he's more used to playing the 6/8 role, not the 10.  These are very questionable choices in must win games.

The final piece to this puzzle is Padraig Smith.  He's fired three coaches (Mastroeni, Hudson, Fraser) and hired their replacements, with a significant lack of success.  While he wouldn't have to fire Armas, since Chris is out of contract, does he deserve a chance to hire a fourth coach?  Its hard to say he does.  But is that a good reason to keep a coach that seems to be spinning his wheels a bit?

In the end I think I come down on the side of moving on from Armas.  While the intangibles he brings are important, what matters is results and he's just not getting them.  While I'm loathe at this point to have Smith take another run at a coach I don't see us succeeding next season with Armas in charge.  Since that's the only significant change we are likely able to make this offseason, we have to make it.  In reality though, until there are changes above the coach in the Front Office, namely getting a real, experienced, MLS GM in place, the decision on the coach is not likely to matter much.  Short of getting a Jim Curtain or the like Smith's failed roster building strategy will drive results more than any coaching decision.

I have some business travel coming up so I may be quiet for a bit but I will be back to talk about roster decisions and focuses for next season.  I'm going to try to get the roster decisions in this week before I leave but we'll see.  And I'll tale my lumps reviewing my predictions for 2025 next month once I'm home.