Colorado Rapids release their protected list

After waiting about 6 hours past when the due date was for the expansion lists to be released, MLS finally gave out the lists of protected players. Colorado's is not quite what most of us expected, and is in fact pretty terrible in my personal opinion.

The list contains Conor Casey, Omar Cummings, Jeff Larentowicz, Pablo Mastroeni, Drew Moor, Brian Mullan, Matt Pickens, Marvell Wynne, Jamie Smith, Danny Earls, and Joseph Nane.

Several head-scratchers on that list, with Danny Earls being protected over Miguel Comminges and Matt Pickens being protected... well, at all with young and talented players like Sanna Nyassi and Anthony Wallace going unprotected in their stead.

Smith, Earls and Nane were the three protected internationals, with Comminges and Irishman Caleb Folan going unprotected. If the Rapids played their cards right I felt like they would almost guarantee that nobody would be taken from them in this expansion draft, but with guys like Wallace, Nyassi and Kosuke Kimura available, I'm not all that sure anymore.