Letter from Peter Wilt

Whoa, what on earth are you talking about? Did you actually understand what I stated? I don't think you have one bit. Lemme, try this again. W-e
(Fire), knew that this could happen and to not have some type of plan to deal with it is whack.

Bull!!!! We were not victims. This should have been handled much better than it was and it looks as though it was handled rather poorly. Key word "LOOK".

There's a plenty I can about not being a good decision. If you want to say he's not too bright,that's on you ~ I think he is a bright person but I think a better job could have been done in dealing with this whole situation. Why do you keep talking about Hristo? He's off the books and this has no bearing on what's going on with the current situation or is he still on the books.

Hunh??? I sure as hell hope that's not the case. If so then I hope like hell we get a new GM because that would imply that the current one has piss poor planning skills and I'm pretty sure that's not the case with PW. I'll go so far as to say he doesn't based on what I've seen.

Hunh, part II? When did I say that I'd rather have another one? Please answer that one for me. Try staying on the topic.

I'm curious, when did you become a Muppet?
I didn't realize PW has his very own MR. Hand?
Damn, learn something new everyday.
Just wondering since you've taken it upon yourself to close this discussion.


QUOTE]Originally posted by Fanaddict [/B]
Fonsos you don't say exactly what wilt should have done and when. remember wilt is not the talent evaluator on the fire he lets the coach do that function.If I could see the future I would have let nowak go after his last healthy season.
[/B][/QUOTE]

Why on Earth should I? I'm not the GM of the club and if I was and wrote that letter, come to think of it, I wouldn't have wrote the letter, especially, if I didn't have an answer for it. Hell, if I could see the future, I'd play the damn Lotto. Lemme ask you this question. Why is it than when someone questions the actions of our GM, you and a few others take it upon yourselves to act as his official spokespersons and especially when you have as much information as those doing the asking? This is a question, I know you can answer.

 

Well, all I can say to you is that you're wrong. No team in MLS currently has a master plan for losing most of their starters and replacement players two years from now. Period. If you think they do, please lend me some of what you're smoking. Come on, be a pal and share the wealth.

Then why didn't you speak up two years ago when it would have done some good? Oh, that's right, because you yourself agreed with what PW was doing.

Because the problems we're having now had their roots in what happened two years ago. What happened then did a lot to deny us options on what to do now. You cannot discuss the events of this offseason without discussing the decision to sign Hristo to a guaranteed league maximum cap that left us with no room to deal with the unprecendented and unpredictable injury crisis that further eroded our options by letting the league force us to "trade" for players we needed just so we didn't forfeit games (which I now think we such have done - or at least credibly threatened to do - to shame the league). As Chris M noted, once we sign Hristo and the injuries piled up there wasn't a whole lot we could do other than what we did do. Chris and I apparently disagree on exactly what the Fire might have been able to do if we hadn't signed Hristo and we disagree over the exact portion of "blame" Hristo's contract should get for our current state, but we both agree that signing Hristo and then having Hristo sit on the bench (whereas getting two players for his salary might have given us more options) contributed to the problems we are having in this offseason, even though Hristo is no longer on our roster. It's really that simple.

Of course, you could strengthen your case by letting us know what PW SHOULD have done and when. By criticizing what PW did, you're implicitly claiming that you had or have a better idea somewhere, so let's see it. If you can't give us your ideas (and we'll even give you the benefit of hindsight even though you didn't reveal your genius plan back two years ago when we could have used one), then you leave yourself open to my argument: that except for signing Hristo (which everyone, not just PW, thought was a good idea at the time) to the guaranteed contract, PW met all reasonable expectations of what a GM could be expected to do given the circumstances in which he was operating and your criticism is invalid except in an unrealistic utopian sense.

Yes, there are situations in which foresight can be reasonably expected but to demand of PW that he predict the inherently unpredictable (ie, the injury plague) is beyond reason.

What if the league suddenly changes its rules four years from now and says that teams must field at least five women? Does PW have a plan for that? If not, I guess he has "piss poor planning skills". So how come the Fire don't have any women on their roster to prepare for this eventuality???? Damn PW's piss poor planning skills!

While we can all expect a reasonable amount of foresight, you're demanding divine omniscience. If you think PW should have foreseen the injury crisis that limited our current options, you're not looking for a GM, you're looking for Sister Cleo.

You're pissed off that everyone says the PW is a great GM. Ergo, you must know a better one for you to criticize everyone else for saying they want PW as their GM. Otherwise, what's your point?
If you DO agree that PW is a great GM, why are you moaning so much about everyone saying what you yourself believe?

If I could go back in time with what I know now and be GM, would I do things differently? Yeah. But then, hindsight is 20/20, after all....

 

Hunh, part II. Listen to yourself and remember who you're responding to. Why would I be pissed off about people stating this, especially when I've stated it my damn self more than a few times? You sound like a 2yr old stating this. Lemme see, I disagree with what was done and stated it and we go from discussing the issue to my being pissed about people calling him a great GM? Get real!! You're not making any sense at all. However, I am disappointed in the number of people who have posted on this thread, notably @ the start of it, who seem to act like Lemmings in regards to the letter instead and not asking questions such as Why did this happen in the first place. You and I could discuss this 'til we turn into dust but you're stuck on the fact that supposedly no one could see this @ the start of last season. You don't need to be Nostradamus to see that this was a possible issue well before the start of last season. AGAIN, WE knew Hristo was going into an option year, so why would you pick up the contract of someone who's played less than a handful of matches the past few seasons. You also knew in advance that he'd be off the books, so again it's a non issue. Did we lobby the league to make sure that we wouldn't lose Nowak? If not then why not? Never hurts to lobby, or does it.

Yeah, and I'm sure you'd resign Hristo to the same damn contract. You don't need to go back in time on this one.

 

regrets, i've had a few....

If Bob and i were going to self evaluate the Fire's moves - or non-moves in some cases - the last couple years, there would certainly be a couple regrets.

HS guaranteed for two years after 2000 -there were some extenuating circumstances that i'd prefer not to make public, but all in all - not wise.

Everything else, trading Diego before '02, not trading Josh during '02....basically as Fonsos said, "going for broke" in '02, i think we would do again. No one could have anticipated the plague of '02. And even so, i believe we were still very close to getting to Foxboro 10/21/02. If you feel strongly that you have a chance to win the Championship, i believe you need to go all out to win it and not white flag it for the future.

This is not a League that rewards teams who plan to be succesful three to five years out. You must plan to win in the current year with a strategy to remain competitive for the Championship the following year - and to a certain extent, the year after that. Keeping the same core of a very good team together for four years is POSSIBLE if enough of them start the stretch very young and hold low numbers on the budget. Five years is nearly impossible if the players are performing well and earning suitable increases.

If they are not performing well, then you are able to keep them together, because their salaries probably aren't escalating, but you probably don't want to.

i believe we are positioned well for another run each of the next three years - though theire are certainly unknowns out there that we will need to continue to react well to - and i don't believe that keeping the recently traded players in lieu of Chris or Carlos would have helped our chances this year or in the near future.

Thanks for caring enough to discuss so passionately.

peter

 

Most Fire fans think that Peter did the right thing, given the hand that he was dealt. Two years ago, it looked like Wolff was headed to Europe while it seemed that Razov would stay in Spain. Dema's move to Germany was probably anticipated too.
The combination of devastating injuries with high-salaried players either staying or returning put the Fire in salary cap hell. Trading the veterans and keeping younger players was the best thing to do under the circumstances. The Fire could have done a white flag sale a la Reinsdorf and missed the playoffs last year. We clawed our way back from the precipice because it is an organization that always tries to win.
I think many fans are frustrated by the lack of transparency in the MLS, not anything Peter did. You can look in the newspaper and see the salaries of football, baseball and hockey players. Cap or salary problems are not a source of anger among other sports fans because you can get out a calculator and see where you are at. The MLS keeps all of that under cover.
My frustration comes from seeing the Fire trade 4 All-Stars due to the salary cap. Yet New England has the cap room to add Nowak and Joe Max More, when the team had to be at or over the cap to begin with. Same thing with LA.
It is the perception, real or imagined, that the league favors certain clubs and one way of doing that is with a flexible salary cap. Peter has done a good job and goes the extra mile to go out on the Internet and explain his strategies. Imagine Jerry Krause doing that?

 

You know, it's easy to criticize Peter...he and Bob made some mistakes and would take back some decisons in retrospect, but who wouldn't?

Me, I'm generally a half-full guy. As I look at the glass, here's what I see.

--A front office with a PLAN. Plans don't always work out, but let's face it: some franchises in this league can't even get THIS far.

--Trophies. Three of them to be exact. And we were "this close" to getting five!! FIVE!!! Do you know how astonishing this is?? The reason we didn't beat the Wizards is that the soccer gods didn't smile on us that day...everyone knows we were the best team in MLS that year. And we were an Eric Wynalda sitter from going to the cup final for the THIRD TIME!! And last year, we were erratic but we had a shot. If you have a shot, take it...NOW.

--Great players. Nowak, Wolff, Armas...and now Beasley and Bocanegra. We're talking players who can hold their own in the best leagues in the world. Players who, win or lose, bring electricity to the game and make you hold your breath in anticipation. Even if we didn't win a single piece of hardware, the entertainment value alone would be worth it. I will never forget the moments of spectacular play and stunning performances I have witnessed.

--Great coaching. Every coach has his flaws, and makes his mistakes, but is there any doubt that Bob is one of the best MLS coaches, and one of the great coaches in US soccer today? The jury of course is out on Dave, but with his pedigree and what I've heard about him, I fully expect excellence in this area to continue without a beat.

So, totalling up the plus and minus columns, I see a lot more plusses than minuses. The stadium issue has always been a boil on our behind, but that will play itself out; the salary cap finally caught up to us; injuries and small rosters have been our undoing.

Yet I have NO worries about this franchise...assuming the league can survive. To me, that's the biggest worry. I'd like to see Peter Wilt have a 25+year career with the Chicago Fire. That means the league survives, and the survival of the league, ladies and gentlemen, is ALL that REALLY matters.

Making the mistake of giving Hristo 2 extra years in my view pales in comparison.

 

Which is exactly why I'm puzzled that you called the people who dared point out the PW is a great GM "blind" and basically told us we're all unthinking sycophants just we appreciate the fact that, unlike any other GM in MLS would have done, he communicated his thoughts on the recent unhappy events with us.

If you'll recall form other threads here, nobody is giving PW what you called "a free pass". The decision to sign Hristo to his guaranteed contract, the decision to trade for Vaudreuil, the decision to pick up Walsh and other moves have all been hotly criticized and debated in the forum in the past. So, some of us are capable of something other than black and white thinking. We can disagree with some of PW's moves while also acknowledging that he is a great GM. Just because we like the fact that PW has chosen to communicate with us doesn't make us his sockpuppets.

Of course, your hinting that PW lied about the Nowak situation ("I think PW is arguably the best GM in the league but the explanation for the Fire losing St. Pete is whack") didn't do your argument any favors either, but just because I disagree with your attempt to place all the blame for Nowak leaving on PW and I point out that other factors were far more to blame doesn't make me (or anyone else) PW's "Mr. Hand", as you so rabidly put it.

As for the rational portion of the argument, you can't say that the injuries did not put severe limitations on our roster options that were already limited by Hristo's contract. I still do not believe that expecting someone to foresee the completely unprecendented level of injuries that the Fire have suffered over the past two years is reasonable. No other team in MLS has had that happen to them and I hope no team ever does, not even the Burn, because it's bad for the league. You may disagree about what constitutes reasonable foresight but in this case of the Fire injuries, it seems that you're a minority of one.

As for the future, PW makes a point about what the league rewards (team that can consistently operate just slightly above mediocrity) and what it punishes (teams that are too competitive in the short term or sign future US Nats mainstays). So you have to take MLS's shifting political priorities and so-called "rules" into consideration as well as more normal factors that can affect roster decisions. I'm sure both PW and Dave have plans on what to do if two or three starters get hurt this year. I'm also sure that neither PW and Dave nor any other MLS team management are planning on what to do if 3/4 of their starting players become unavailable for most of the season in 2005 and some of their replacements get appendicitis or some other unpredictable thing. Maybe PW can correct me if I'm wrong about that last statement. Given the above, I place more of the blame for Nowak's departure on the league itself or AEG than I do on PW. Which also does not automaticaly make me his, as you said, "muppet".

I really don't know what more I can say on this topic. Yes, we both believe that there are things a GM should be expected to foresee and deal with to get the best balance of current and future competitiveness. If you still believe that a GM should foresee events that are by their nature unpredictable, however, then I guess we shake hands and respectfully agree to disagree. I can live with that.

 

Re: regrets, i've had a few....

PW,
thanks for your reply, definitley appreciated however, I have a few ??? regarding what you stated.

Naturally, regrets are part of the Self Evaluation process. However, did I misunderstand what you stated when I assume that we’re not doing self evaluations? If so, why not? I’d figure that a log or diary of some type would be a very valuable tool and used as a reference to help create player profiles used to make future decisions about on field personnel.

Going for Broke is one thing but putting all of your eggs in the same basket is whack, especially when you know you’re gonna have to make omelets in the near future. We obviously differ on what we mean by Going for Broke and how it should be done. We’re both in agreement about how close we were to getting to Foxboro last season. Joe et al whom threw out the “yeah, if won blah, blah,” quotes completely miss the mark when I made that statement and as soon as I can figure out a way to express what I meant more clearly, I most certainly will.

More ???? coming

 

I made my initial remarks because that letter reads like a sad PR post. We were better off without the damn letter as I stated in my initial post, as soon as it was put out there then it's open season regarding that letter.

Thr Free pass implication / remark was regarding that letter. I had no intention of implying and sure has hell didn't hint that PW lied about the Nowak trade. Check the earlier posts. Hell, I blame the league more than anyone else however, I wonder when and how much time was spent trying to keep it from happening. I do fault him on this part. I still wonder about it. We had a whole season to get it right and somehow that wasn't enough time? Not buying it. I'm also one of the many people who enjoy the fact that PW communicates on a regular basis but it doesn't mean I'm not going to call him on it if I disagree with what was stated.

Lemme try this again, before the start of last season. Not during but before the start of last season. Follow me on this one?

[/B][/QUOTE]
As for the future, PW makes a point about what the league rewards (team that can consistently operate just slightly above mediocrity) and what it punishes (teams that are too competitive in the short term or sign future US Nats mainstays). So you have to take MLS's shifting political priorities and so-called "rules" into consideration as well as more normal factors that can affect roster decisions. I'm sure both PW and Dave have plans on what to do if two or three starters get hurt this year. I'm also sure that neither PW and Dave nor any other MLS team management are planning on what to do if 3/4 of their starting players become unavailable for most of the season in 2005 and some of their replacements get appendicitis or some other unpredictable thing. Maybe PW can correct me if I'm wrong about that last statement. Given the above, I place more of the blame for Nowak's departure on the league itself or AEG than I do on PW. Which also does not automaticaly make me his, as you said, "muppet".
[/B][/QUOTE]
Obvious issues with the hand puppet remarks. Let them go and get back to my initial comments. So, you're stating that PW magically figured what the league does and doesn't reward? Come on baby, do better than this. Look, we knew before the start of last season we'd have contractual issues. This is what I'm getting at, not the injuries during the season. Now you're wondering how can I ignore the inuries. Remember, before the start of the season is what I'm talking about.

 

What pedigree is that ?really, I am serious , I am not being sarcastic one bit.What exactly has Sarachan ever accomplished ? Please dont give me that he is friends with Bruce Arena either.Getting a job becuase who your freinds are, is not a pedigree, its coat tail riding.Heck even in the US i would bet you that if you polled Collegiate, club and minor league coaches a hell of alot more would know who Nowak is before Sarachan.
Nowak has Pedigree, DAVE DOES NOT.Nowak has proven himself as a leader ,tactician and Manager (he owns a team in poland).Dave has not.

so would I, not becuase I like the man.But becuase it would likely mean we have had a successful well run club if the GM stayed put for 25 years.Right now there are serious questions about the quality of management that is running this team.I wont question the PR skills, as their is no team in the US in any sport that has better PR then what Wilt has created.but,Whoever is calling the shots for the Fire is showing they lack some serious soccer management skills.From player contract screw ups to poor decisions on hiring a replacememt coach.This team looks to be in serious trouble.
As someone who has spent a large amount of time and money following this team it pisses me off.I dont want to rebuild through the "You suck allocation".And to me that is what Wilt and Sarachan are doing.I have Pride in wearing my Fire Jersey and scarf.The thought of the team missing the playoffs horrifys me, the idea we may be as pathetic as Metrostars makes me down right angry.
We've gone from a team that had some international recognition to essentially an Aleague team that plays on ESPN overnight.And that sickens me .

 

And my argument is exactly that by the 2001/2002 offseason, we had Hristo still on our books, had been forced to re-sign Razov in August, 2001 at league max and had traded away too many of our picks (and therefore roster options) in order just to keep a full roster to really "do" much of anything to keep Nowak this year, if Nowak insisted on the league max salary which he has every right to do. We were stuck at the end of 2001 because of decisions made at the end of 2000 that helped make us so competitive in 2001 despite a large number of injuries to our forwards that, as Karl Keller has pointed out, we came within a Wynalda sitter of going to MLS Cup 2001. Of course, I didn't hear many Fire fans complaining about things at the end of 2001.

We are stuck NOW because of being stuck at the end of 2001 AND because of the unbelievable injury plague of 2002. We had no room to maneuver at the end of 2001, unless you're saying we should have gotten rid of either Nowak, Razov, or Armas at that time (remember, we couldn't get rid of Hristo's maximum slary). Remember, we already knew we'd be missing some of our best players to the World Cup in 2002. Of course, PW could have used that as an excuse to "plan ahead" by giving up on the 2002 season entirely and dumping Nowak and/or Armas and/or Razov and/or some of our other players and that could have been how we dealt with the salary cap issues we knew were coming at the end of 2002. But that would just have meant that we'd have been howling back then instead of now. Big whup.

The present is affected by the past, including actions taken previously to the immediate past. I don't see why this is so hard for you to grasp.

Are you saying he should have magically predicted in January, 2001 that all our forwards would be injured and we'd have to sign Razov again at league max? Should PW have also magically predicted in January, 2002 that we'd have THE worst injury crisis ever in MLS ON TOP OF the call-ups we knew about? What, do all MLS GMs except PW have some magical crystal ball that shows them the future? Do they have hotlines to Miss Cleo to make them omnisciently psychic as you're demading?

Due to the very nature of the league, we were going to have to give up someone(s) both last year and this year. With hindsight, that player should have been Wolff and not Gutierrez (but can you imagine the screeching that would have gone on here if we'd dumped Wolff at the end of 2001?). No amount of "planning", however, was going to exempt us from the league's selective enforcement of their so-called "salary cap". We couldn't dump Hristo at the end of 2001 because of his guarantee signed in 2000. We'd traded away draft picks that we could possibly have used to get cap space or to trade for lower cost players in 2001 to get Razov in August, 2001 as an emergency replacement player. So what was PW supposed to do at the end of 2001 without merely gutting the team then instead of now? Please enlighten us since by your criticism you are implicitly implying to have known better than him.

But that is exactly what you're arguing because injuries DID play a large role in our roster moves both at the end of 2001 and the end of 2002. Even if you foolishly wish to ignore the impact of 2002's injuries on what is happening now, you're still stuck trying to get around the fact that if all our forwards aren't injured in 2001, we don't need to go get Razov in August, 2001 and we have more cap room and more picks. How, exactly, was PW supposed to predict in the 2000/2001 offseason that all our forwards would be injured in 2001 after we'd signed Hristo's guaranteed contract? Please tell us this.

 

We've got two of the most prominent US domestic players on the international stage in Beasley and Armas. You're saying that just because we don't have aging superstars that the Eurosnobs can relate to, we don't merit any attention?

Condemning Sarachan before he's even coached a single MLS game is also, to borrow an overly glib phrase seen elsewhere, "whack." Yeah, he's never coached at a pro level, but NEITHER HAD BOB BRADLEY when he came in, and he ended up doing a pretty good job. You're letting your preconceptions and biases affect your judgement here. If you turn out to be right in the end, more power to you, but you're speculating as much as the next guy right now.

Look, I've got some issues with decisions the front office has made, but in most cases, the bad judgement only became apparent in hindsight. And yes, there are concerns about this coming season, because we perhaps didn't move ourselves forward, talent-wise, from last season. But given the sheer number of games missed to injury and the World Cup last year, we may still have had a headstart at the end of the day. Claiming we're trying to draft LeBron James this early seems more a product of Seasonal Affective Disorder than anything else.

I know I'm pissing into the wind here, because we've got a long time with no real Fire news right now, but some things needed to be addressed.

Later,
COZ

 

Dave certainly deserves our support as much as Bob got our support. Whether he will be a great,good or bad coach remains to be seen. With our salary cap and roster problems, I'm not sure if it is even fair to judge him on the Fire's record this year especially if it is poor.
I don't say the bob and peter were perfect, as I was dead against the vauderill move last year and said it at the time. I'm not sure if the league forced that on the fire because like I said then, I would have rather shamed the league and played short handed than give up a number 1 pick in the draft, which we now see could have gotten us a pretty good player.

 

The Vaudriel situation shows why some people, including me, feel that the MLS does not treat all teams equally. We had a team which was decimated by injuries and World Cup duties. The Vaudriel move was one of desperation so we could field 11 players. Charging us our number one pick to haul David out of retirement was punitive. New England did not give up its number one pick to get Joe Max Moore back. I know you can argue that Joe Max was New England's property and so on but it seems pretty harsh to me.
No one really knows how good a coach David Sarachan will be but keep in mind that he coached the USMNT for the Costa Rica game in Columbus and the Barbados game in Barbados. Coach Arena was suspended for criticizing Peter Predergast and the suspension was announced after months-and 2 WCQs-had elapsed. He got good results in both games. Now I know that Arena may have been in the wings and at practice, but David had to call shots during the heat of battle. I think he has done a good job in the past.
People are free to criticize Peter if they like, but I don't think he could have done any better under such difficult circumstances.

 

Joe,
I'm gonna stop trying to get my point across to you because you just don't get it. So, I'm Treating it like the Beatles and letting it be. However, if you're gonna quote me, don't half ass the quote. I'm referring to the quote about being able to predict injuries. Clearly that's not what I was arguiing, if you include the entire statement I also inclued an example of what I meant by being able to forsee things. Focus on what I said,
F-O-C-U-S (weird scary music)

 

Still can be a winner !!!

It truly is amazing at how much talent has left the Fire since the end of the 2002 season. Nowak, Kovalenko, Stoichkov and Wolff were are All-Star capable players.

It is more amazing to remember the team we still have in Chicago. Razov, Faria, Gray, Armas, Thornton, Marsch, Whitfield, Bocanegra, Brown, Curtin, Perez, Beasley and all the new additions to the team are still a competent group. I'll optimistically wait to see what Mr. Sarachan can do to mold the team into a winner by the time that it matters in October.

Knowing Mr. Wilt is so connected and tries to understand the concerns of the fans, I suspect that us season ticket holders will be given many opportunities to meet this team. Those events have always been a big part of the season to our family. And, I look forward to getting to know the 2003 players and coaches.

 

You're right. I just don't get how you think that PW was supposed to predict the injuries of 2001 (let alone 2002!) that went a long way towards denying us options with regards to our roster. And if you're not saying that, then your anti-PW rant has no point to it as he's not even in the top three on the list of "People Responsible For Us Not Having Nowak This Year".

*throws hands up in air, walks away*

 

Re: Still can be a winner !!!

It will be intersting to see which player gets the Ejection Seat, ie. having to sit at the Barnburners Table Of Death at the FWFK luncheon in a few months.

 

PW should have predicted the tiresomeness of this thread two years ago and taken steps to avert it.













Yes, I was being facetious.

 

We will only find out if the first quote of your's is true next year. LA has never had to go trough a salary cap purge. Now they sign APC to a long term deal. I will eat your hat if you try and tell me it is at a reduced rate. NY just goes out a gets anything they want. Now they are trying to get a 22 year old Spainsh Central Midfielder. Please try and convince me he comes cheap. Since I know that Pope and Moreno both are Max Salary players their numbers are starting to not add up again. (i.e.-see the Lother year)

It does stink going from the best team in the league to the bottom. Also it has been a three year exile. Fortunatly in that span LA/NY have won only one league title despite the Luis Hernandez, Carlos Hermosillo, and other player placements that have been made to try and help NY and LA.

B.T.W. - our business side GM, Stephen Zack is a regular reader and poster on DC United's BS board, so yes it is nice have that real world contact with the front office.

 

To be fair to LA, except for the Mexican "superstrikers" they have managed to avoid the kind of crippling salary escalation among their supporting players that has whacked the Fire and DCU by re-signing Senor Hundredfires to lower salaries and by getting young Americans who are just good enough to get a sniff of the USMNT without actually getting called up and thereby becoming well-known and expensive. That said, yeah, if they're under the salary cap this year then I'm Zinedine Zidane.

Still, now that they've won MLS Cup, I expect LA to get somewhat dismantled in another year or two, especially if the Mutts haven't won anything by then. Odds are LA probably won't get totally dismantled ala the Fire and DCU but they'll get hamstrung just enough to be put at a disadvantage to the Mutts. After that, New Jersey will have to earn it.

I also think the league has finally learned its lesson about trying to stack the Mutts although the Pope/Moreno for Petke deal is suspicious because nobody in their right mind would trade those two players for Petke straight up and I don't see how DCU could be in that much salary cap trouble with so many young players and so little success over the past few years. At any rate, the league has gotten Bradley to the Swamp and I think even Sackiewicz is just barely smart enough to let Bob run the show his own way. Bob has rewarded them with a fantastic draft and it looks like the league finally has what they've always wanted - a winner in Joisey. Took them long enough.

 

The Gals had to move Robin Frazier due to the salary cap.

 

whack attack

I think it's whack to bust out some cold whack-ass arguments that your GM didn't have a plan to avoid the whack dealing of Peter Nowak to some whack-ass East Coast team of beotches when the self-same GM already sent your whack ass a letter explaining that he did, in fact, have a plan, but that whack circumstances caused it to fall through, forcing us into the aforementioned whack dealings.

I also think its whack as all get out to continually harp on everyone who disagrees with you as "whack" or "blind" or say they be busting out with the ill communication when you present all your whack comments with the reading and comprehension skills of a whack-ass 4th grader.

I think I'll just whack off,

ltt