A View From The South Stands: Devils Advocate

I want to play a little Devils Advocate here so bear with me. With the Rapids needing as much help as they do right now I think that the most prudent thing to do would be to trade either Omar Cummings or Conor Casey. Both players are very good strikers and could immediately help whatever team they were traded to. What the Rapids should look at is what teams out there have defenders, namely center backs that can help our team immediately.

Now I know talking about trading either one of those players is almost sacrilegious, but with the Rapids only position of strength being its forwards, and its greatest lack of depth being its defense I think it only makes sense.

With Kamani Hill and Tony Cascio potentially being strong forwards, and more in the vein of a Conor Casey it would be best to keep Cummings and trade Casey. Casey is a fan favorite and it would hurt to lose a player of his caliber, but he is really only good at taking up space in the box and not at creating shots for others. Hill showed a tenacity that we have not seen from him yet this year against Swansea City. Hill and Cascio are both young players that have so much room to grow.

With the Rapids defense looking like it has lately, the biggest thing they need now is a center back to solidify the ranks. I think moving Drew Moor out to the wing and starting Hunter Freeman opposite him with Marvell Wynne and a possibly new center back in the middle both our center defense and our wing defense can both be solidified greatly.

Three teams in particular could use the help of a striker like Casey. The Vancouver Whitecaps, Seattle Sounders, and Chicago Fire all could use someone with Casey's size and ability to disrupt opposing teams defenses. All three teams have a goal differential of +4 or less with Vancouver and Chicago being +1 and 0 respectively.

Now I haven't taken much look at those teams defenders but with what looks like a need on their parts, and a need on ours, this could be the perfect opportunity to get a young player that Oscar Pareja can build his defense around. Pareja has made it quite obvious that he is looking to establish his identity on the Rapids and Conor Casey is not one of his guys.

By trading Casey the Rapids would bolster their defense and get quicker up front at striker while maintaining some size with guys like Hill and Cascio. Just playing devils advocate here, but what do you think?