(Sometimes little tangential questions or concepts about, or inspired by, a given team occur to me when I'm watching a game (in a quiet, distraction-free atmosphere. Not wanting to get these lost in the overall summary of the game, I like the idea of posting these solo.)

(Trust me. I'll stop explaining everything shortly.)

I went on about FC Dallas picking up #3 rankings in a lot of the power polls I've already read and I'm having trouble making sense of that. It seems that, generally, people are comforted by rumors of defensive solidity. Pursuant to that: is it because Dallas, 1) has good weapons on offense (Kenny Cooper, Arturo Alvarez, Juan Toja...when he wakes up), and that, 2) historically, defense has been their Achilles' heel that people seem to put so much stock in their defense?

What's really in the back of my mind on all this: if San Jose is your measure - e.g. one of the league's worse offenses - how can you say Dallas' defense has improved?