Chicago Fire Midweek Training: 3 takeaways from Week 19
2. The SuperDraft failures
I don’t think that the MLS SuperDraft will ever truly die, but it is in effect dead. I say this after covering the Draft for the past four years. The NCAA system isn’t producing the next big player from America. I will also say that the drafts from 2015-2018 were filled with some of the strongest talent in draft history and I don’t think we’ll see that sort of thing again. It just so happens that the Chicago Fire had pole position for most of those drafts and the man in the driver’s seat was GM Nelson Rodriguez. He wasted all of his moments. Let’s look at them.
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His first draft for the Chicago Fire was 2016, where he had the first overall pick. He took Jack Harrison, then immediately traded him to NYCFC for the fourth overall pick. With that pick, Rodriguez took Brandon Vincent. Vincent had a couple of solid seasons at left-back and even made the All-Star team. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t happy playing soccer and chose to retire. Next, Rodriguez traded away now ‘surplus’ left-back Joevin Jones to Seattle for their 12th pick. Jones would go on to have a solid couple seasons with Seattle until he was sold to Germany, then sold back to Seattle. With that pick, Rodriguez took center-back Jonathan Campbell, who I was a massive fan of going into the draft. He showed promise throughout his time with the Fire and seemed to be an important depth piece on the defensive line. He would end up being traded for a 4th round pick in 2019. The next three selections, Alex Morrell, Vincent Keller, and Vincent Mitchell, would be cut by the team at varying times within the season.
In 2017, the Chicago Fire selected third overall but traded down to the 11th with NYCFC, who would use that pick for Jonathan Lewis. Instead, Rodriguez selected Daniel Johnson, a promising midfielder who trained at West Ham for a bit. He showed small flashes, but never too much. After a particularly bad game early in 2018, he was benched and eventually waived. After trading away their natural second-round pick, Rodriguez traded GAM for two different second rounders. The first pick was Stefan Cleveland, a goalkeeper who has barely seen any minutes with the Fire and seems to be permanently on loan to a USL team. The other was Guillermo Delgado, a player who was unable to sign with the Fire due to international slot restrictions. In the third round, Brandt Bronico was selected. He apparently impressed in training in his rookie season but was inexplicably benched for the rest of it. Only in 2018 would he be given real minutes. He was almost buried by Paunovic until his ‘grindset’ proved that he wasn’t going to be passed over any longer. Fourth-round pick Matej Dekovic was another international slot player who wouldn’t see any game time from the Fire.
In the 2018 draft, Rodriguez put together quite a blockbuster trade for the 5th overall pick, moving GAM and TAM, the Fire’s own first-round pick, and goalkeeper Matt Lampson. That fifth pick was used to select MAC Hermann Trophy winner Jon Bakero. Bakero would be given just 76 total minutes with the first team, mostly in the worst possible situations for a rookie to work in and would be traded for Nico Hasler, who would eventually be waived due to international slot issues. Then, Rodriguez traded $85k in GAM for the 10th pick to select Mo Adams. Mo Adams had proven to be a solid physical player who could grow into a leader for the Fire. This week, he was traded away for $100k in GAM to Atlanta United. In the second round, Rodriguez went for Diego Campos, a promising attacker out of Clemson. Since the team already had so many attackers, he was eventually pushed into right-back and subsequently benched when Paunovic realized that he wasn’t a good right-back. He’s an attacker. The third-round pick came from a trade that sent GAM and Kennedy Igboananike to D.C. United. Rodriguez selected Elliot Collier, who played significant minutes for the club throughout last season and was viewed as one of the weakest players on the pitch. He’s now loaned out and performing much better at USL level. Once again, the fourth-round pick was cut, this time being Josh Morton.
In 2019, the draft was hosted by Chicago. So while Chicago Fire fans watched and waited to greet their new player, Nelson Rodriguez chose to trade away the fifth overall pick for the 15th pick and GAM. Then he traded the 15th pick for GAM. The Fire’s second-round pick was already traded away for Fabian Herbers, who up to this point has been decent for the club. The Fire would make all their selections in the 2019 draft in the third and fourth rounds. Ebenezer Ackon, Grant Stoneman, and Mark Forrest would all not make the cut for the Fire.
Rodriguez may state that he wants to build the club with young players, that he wants everyone to trust the process, but there appears to be no process being trusted by the front office. Over the course of four years of drafting and handling the ownership of over 20 picks, Rodrigues, from some of the best drafts MLS has seen, has acquired: a couple of attackers playing out of position at right-back, a couple of USL level players, and a bunch of GAM/TAM. This was not a failure of the draft system, this was Rodriguez’s own failure.