I totally agree.. A goal’s a goal not matter what and even better when it win’s the game. Jeff is a great player and an even better person. I wish him the best of luck in the race for the golden boot… You rock Jeff!!!

Wow, that has to be some of the worst writing I have seen in my life. Who is the “scaryice” joker?

Casey has 3 goals from penalty kicks while Cunningham has only 1 from penalty kicks. I don’t see how those 2 extra goals would be of a higher quality. Kicks are usually gifts anyways…. and most good strikers put them in without question.

Jones, scaryice is usually on the money. his blog is a stats driven bit that is frequently insightful and surprising. I visit it often.

I think he just misfired on this one.

Here’s hoping Jeff reads that article and it pisses him off.

Jeff will read it, count on that.

Buzz – what is his background? Is he a Colorado homer? Casey is having a nice year, but I am not terribly impressed with his game. I think he’s had great help from having Cummings paired with him. And he stunk up the place in is USMT chances.

i agree with jonesing…not that casey’s stench with the usmnt carries any weight in the mls, but most goals wins…just like last season – i’m sure more people were rooting for cooper to take the boot rather than landycakes, but guess who won? the guy who scored more, not the guy more people like…buzz, i think the “misfire” is wide right…i don’t think this was subjective at all.

My problem with this is that he is basically suggesting that Cunningham be punished for what is arguably the worst defensive performance by a team this season.

So my question is, should Cunningham’s goals be worth less because we’ve given up a league-worst amount of goals on defense? And no disrespect to Conor, but are his goals worth more because he’s on a better team?

I think not.

Jones, he’s in the Columbus Chicago area I believe.

So I wonder what Jeff did to him back in Columbus to make him write such a POS article, refuse to autograph his Crew jersey?

scaryice is a Chicago supporter

Allow me to respond to your points, Buzz.

1) I suppose you could say “least impactful” instead, but it’s easier just to say worst. He would be worst because he has scored almost all his goals after the team is out of contention.

I know he didn’t get to start until that point. I also know that several other players have won the boot playing for below average teams. But none of the previous winners have been in a situation like this (mostly due to the fact that there are more non-playoff teams now).

Also, while this is harder to measure, I think you could argue that he is having the worst season performance-wise of any of them. Of the previous 13, 5 were MVP winners, and 4 more were nominees. I don’t think Jeff will be an MVP nominee. Also, 12/13 were on the Best XI. I’d be surprised to see Jeff there as well.

2) FCD’s playoff odds were at less than 5% halfway into the season, and peaked at 11% since. I don’t think Sportsclubstats is perfect, but that seems pretty accurate to me:

http://www.sportsclubstats.com...as_ChanceWillMakePlayoffs.html

3) I’m not a big fan of “game winning goals” as a stat. I think it’s better to look at goals that have given your team a lead, since it doesn’t take defense into account. Because that’s what separates a “game winning goal” from any goal that gives your team the lead: how your defense performs.

Also, having fewer game winning goals doesn’t mean that Casey scores “early goals.” Haven’t looked that up, but I don’t think there would be much to that idea. I mean, I could tell you that several of Cunningham’s game winning goals have come in big victories (3-0, 6-0, 3-0). I just don’t think it’s a good stat period.

4) I’ll leave this argument for another day.

Yes, I’m a Chicago fan, and no, I don’t hate all things Dallas.

So explain why scoring goals for a team that has struggled is less valuable than scoring goals for a team that is winning? That is like saying a QB that throws a ton of touchdown passes can’t be the best passer in the NFL ( or is the “worst” best passer in the NFL) because the team he plays for has a crappy defense and the team is out of contention for the playoffs. Sorry your argument here is just plain lame.
And why wouldn’t Jeff be on the best XI if he scores 20+ goals? How could he NOT be?

#2 is irrelevent. A team out of the playoff picture struggles as hard or harder to score goals. It isn’t like other team are throwing out a bunch of reserve team players against FCD. Most of the teams FCD has played during Jeff’s streak have been teams fighting to get into the playoffs making his goals even more important.
3. WOW – I cannot believe you even typed this one. Just pure stupidity.

I think your article is the WORST SOCCER Article EVER.

Typical scaryice. He lets his personal feelings get in the way. He should not be trusted when it comes to objective analysis. I’ve been reading his stuff for years on BigSoccer and this is the way he operates. He’s great a collecting stats, but poor at providing the “meat” around the numbers.

Now watch….he will hunt me down on BigSoccer and give me neg rep for posting this opinion. LOL.

So, he’s saying that Jeff’s the A-Rod of MLS.

And like A-Rod, Jeff’s only hit more meaningless homeruns (err, scored more meaningless goals) than one other person in the history of the league. And it just so happens that this year, he’s scored as many meaningless garbage-time goals as the best players in the league have scored in timely, meaningful situations.

Ugh. These kinds of sweeping generalizations may be good for sports talk radio and increasing page views, but man, they don’t make any sense anywhere else.

I could understand his point about playing for a bad team in regards to the league MVP vote. That’s an award where stats mean nothing if your team isn’t winning.

But the golden boot is for the most goals. That’s it. Nothing else. If Jeff has the most goals this years (and I hope he will) than he is the most-deserving winner.

Landon won the Golden Boot last year on a team that snagged only 33 points during the season. So is he the reigning worst player to ever win it? Or does this kind of analysis only apply to teams/players that you don’t like?

Not sure how relevant it is to Golden Boot, but compare the assists line of Casey and Cunningham which gives an even better picture of production. Also check out the minutes stat line (not games played). Hard to argue for Casey. And since when did having a worse team make it easier to score goals? Seems counterintuitive.

“It’s not like he is standing still and the FCD mids are bouncing the ball off his face.”

The visual image almost made me fall out of the chair, good stuff!

And another Game winning goal for Jeff last night. I’m sure ScaryIce won’t be printing his retraction anytime soon.