People (not just
VernonJohn) really want to believe that this team's playoff failures somehow represent a player acquisition failure.
I know people are tired of this but this team has excelled in regular season play for several years. But though it's kind of empty when the team says it in marketing, you cannot ignore it for analysis purposes. Because there never was any predicting that the same players who earned that season record would consistently bomb in the playoffs. That's not predictable, or easily fixed with more money or better scouting. What exactly is the scouting metric or salary cost for "won't fuck up in the playoffs?" What exactly made Columbus know that Zelarayan would score as many goals in one playoff run as David Villa did in 3 (while adding 5 assists to Villa's zero)? In 2015, would anyone here have preferred Jozy Altidore on our playoff rosters over David Villa? Jozy had 9 G+A in the 2016 playoffs alone. That's 7 more than Villa had in his MLS career. Who predicts that? Is that the fault of CFG, Reyna, who? It's not even Villa's fault.
Tired of the Villa comparisons? 2019. NYCFC scores 1.94 goals per game in the second half of the season, and earned more than 2 PPG after a slow first 6 games, then bombed in the playoffs, yet again. Everyone here expected a win. Because that made sense. If there was even one post here before that playoff game that said we will lose because Heber, Taty, and Shradi and Mitrita lack star power and combine for 1 goal while Pozuelo will carry Toronto I don't remember it. Even then, Pozuelo only scored because of an outright gift from Chanot and someone else earned a penalty. He did not exactly dominate that game.
You never know how someone will do in the playoffs until it happens, and it's non-predictive. Belichick and Brady are 0-2 against the Giants in the Super Bowl and I think 6-1 against the rest of the NFC. Meanwhile the Giants were mostly terrible that entire period, and weren't even that good the years they beat the Patriots. But they won those Super Bowls, and it counts, and Giants fans would not trade those wins for 7 years of first place finishes. So it goes in knockout playoffs.
But somehow CFG should know how to sign players who, something something.
The success of Seattle, Toronto and Columbus in a statistically small handful of seasons proves nothing. Playoffs stats are what clusters and randomness looks like. That great Altidore 2016 playoff run? He had 1.39 G+A per 90. His other 6 years of MLS playoff appearances? 0.32 GA/90. So was Toronto brilliant or stupid for signing him? Does it matter that Toronto lost MLS Cup in 2016 but won in one of his more prevalent off years? Is he a clutch MLS playoff performer or not? There is no answer to that.
NYCFC's problems are not fixable by pre-identifying players who will score in playoff games. And that unfixable-except-by-chance problem is our problem no matter how much people want to pretend it's an issue that could have been fixed with better ---- something. It just happens.
ETA: The one thing I think you can put on CFG is having 2 good coaches quit in short order, and under circumstances that left the club having to adjust on the fly just as the coach and roster started humming. Even then, I'm not sure it makes a difference in knockout play if Vieira stays until the end of 2018 or if Dome were here last year.
