MLS Week 16 SRS Rankings and Season Projection

Another drawn out weekend in the MLS (get it?) with 6 of 9 matches ending all tied up and two of those were 0-0.  The most entertaining match was Real Salt Lake's 3-3 draw at home against New England.  This was a matchup of the best defense (RSL) against the worst offense (NE) and it was played at Rio Tinto where RSL is nearly unbeatable.  Problem was that RSL dug themselves into a hole when Nat Borchers drew a red card in the 3rd minute.  The Revolution converted on the subsequent penalty kick and added another to go up 2-0 on 10-man RSL.

RSL fought back to tie it in the 2nd half but New England took the lead back in the 63rd minute and seemed poised to pull off a huge upset.  But a 2nd yellow on Ryan Cochrane evened up both sides at 10 men.  This opened up some space for RSL's offense which tied up the game on this goal.  Overall this match featured 6 goals, 2 penalty kicks, 6 yellow cards and 2 red cards.  Referee Yader Reyes generated a lot of controversy for his handling of the match.

Here are the SRS ratings through Week 16:



Team	MOV	SOS	SRS
Real Salt Lake	0.563	-0.053	0.509
Los Angeles	0.500	-0.021	0.479
FC Dallas	0.500	-0.047	0.453
Seattle	0.350	0.019	0.369
New York	0.333	0.018	0.352
Philadelphia	0.294	0.022	0.316
San Jose	0.188	0.051	0.239
Columbus	0.059	0.026	0.085
Houston	-0.056	0.032	-0.024
Chivas USA	-0.059	-0.026	-0.084
Kansas City	-0.063	-0.052	-0.115
Chicago	-0.167	0.038	-0.129
Colorado	-0.111	-0.028	-0.139
D.C. United	-0.375	0.041	-0.334
Vancouver	-0.389	-0.037	-0.426
New England	-0.444	0.011	-0.433
Portland	-0.563	0.022	-0.541
Toronto FC	-0.632	-0.013	-0.645

RSL continues to top the rankings.  They have played the easiest schedule in the league thus far.  The Western Conference now has the top 4 spots and 5 of the top 7.  Toronto remains at the bottom despite their victory over Vancouver.  The Whitecaps were not strong enough to really improve Toronto's rating.

After the jump I will have my updated season projection:

Eastern Conference
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	New York	34	13	18	3	54	40	14	57
2	Philadelphia	34	14	14	6	42	29	13	56
3	Kansas City	34	12	15	7	41	34	7	51
4	Columbus	34	13	8	13	38	36	2	47
5	Chicago	34	6	21	7	40	42	-2	39
6	Houston	34	6	17	11	38	40	-2	35
7	D.C. United	34	5	15	14	50	62	-12	30
8	New England	34	3	15	16	29	45	-16	24
9	Toronto FC	34	3	13	18	29	54	-25	22
Western Conference
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Real Salt Lake	34	17	14	3	44	25	19	65
2	Los Angeles	34	16	16	2	41	26	15	64
3	FC Dallas	34	14	14	6	45	33	12	56
4	Seattle	34	13	17	4	41	31	10	56
5	San Jose	34	10	16	8	49	42	7	46
6	Colorado	34	8	16	10	34	38	-4	40
7	Portland	34	9	7	18	37	62	-25	34
8	Chivas USA	34	5	18	11	40	45	-5	33
9	Vancouver	34	4	16	14	35	46	-11	28

Philadelphia had the only significant change from last week with their projected points dropping from 62 to 56 and dropping from first in the Eastern Conference to second.  In fact I'm now projecting that they will lose in the conference finals to New York.  The Union's projection was hurt by their draw against D.C. United, a match they were expected to win.  That cost them two points and after reprojecting based on week 16 they are expected to lose an additional four points over the course of the season.  They

So my projected MLS Cup final is RSL vs New York, but I'm still projecting RSL as the MLS Cup champions.