Jermaine Jones off to LA?

I was going to write:

"Dude's a total mercenary.

He really has no sense of club, just a sense of where he can get a higher paycheck."

But I guess everyone is like that, no?

 

Well, it has been brought up by someone else that his family lives in LA, even when he was "playing" here.

 

He played hard when he played. The statement he made just hours after being bounced out of the playoffs sucked, but I don't think it reflected the effort he gave.

I think we always knew his time with us would be short. He signed here out of desperation, and with the Rapids, his incentives (show he was still a big time player) dovetailed with what the team needed--a quality player to be that intense guy Pablo wanted.

I'm glad we had him for a year, wish he could have played more games. Also glad he helped show what would happen if the team brought in true quality.

 

This comment brings up a thought. JJ was HUNGRY to prove himself while here. When he gets to LA, he will be at home, making his money in the twilight of a career. Not saying he won't be his normal self, but I wonder if he was more aggressive here than he would be otherwise.

rod.

 

Makes sense. The info I got last year was Jones was the one who reached out to the the Rapids. He contacted the RFO directly and instructed his agent to "make things happen" once the Rapids indicated they were interested. The suggestion was JJ was fully aware he was a bit of a poison pill in the MLS and was willing to prove himself so he could move on.

 

It was a pleasure having him here. Quite a few memorable moments; my favorite was his scoring in the snow game. JJ helped make us relevant again. Wish it wasn't LA, but I wish him well.

I'm hoping the front office enjoyed being complimented for the first time in years and will want to bask in that glow next year.

 

He gave us a spark for the first games he played. Wasn't the same after the Copa America break and injury. I appreciate he made people talk about the Rapids again and hopefully they can continue that momentum by making another big signing this year. In my opinion, LA can have another heavily worn over 35 player.

 

I had dinner with JJ about a month ago and, yes, he reached out to Pablo personally. Lots of interesting tidbits in the conversation over the course of a two hour dinner and I obviously have a lot of respect for the guy.

He's definitely advocating in his own best interest - that's for sure, and he's done an awesome job at it.

 

Maybe not PC but you have to love JJ's passion and honesty:

@ColoradoRapids @MLS pic.twitter.com/KsgpIOHF0k

— Jermaine Jones (@Jermainejunior) December 14, 2016

 

He is a huge heart in the middle of the formation. Maybe his knee is out and he is transitioning out....Sad to see him go.

R

 

I think the unfortunate part about this is that I only saw one player this year who was able to noticeably and consistently improve our attacking ability, and that was Jermaine Jones. The combination of the work rate, confidence on the ball and vision to find players in better attacking position (which wasn't often so it was even more critical) will be hard to replace. I understand that health issues and economics suggest that it wouldn't make sense for the Rapids and a trade was best-case in that respect. Good luck to JJ. He gave everything he had while he was here, and that's more than we can say of others who came before him.

 

Would like to hear more about the "crazy coaching staff" comment. Crazy in a good way? Or just crazy?

 

No amounts mentioned, but TAM was used when LA signed JJ.

 

That's not how I read that link:

So they must be at DP salary to use TAM on them. So he's making between $480K and $1M.

 

Similar to 2016 with the Rapids when JJ made $650K and was bought down with TAM. $525K was the Galaxy offer last week that was "leaked" by league sources per ESPN.

 

So about $52.5 k /match ...

 

Wow, I misread that for sure