Sweeney: Changes coming in the offseason, but too little, too late for this Revs team

FOXBOROUGH — Over the course of a 34-match regular season, there are a grand total of 102 points up for grabs. That’s 34 opportunities to show one’s quality. 34 opportunities to shove the accelerator through the floorboards offensively. 34 opportunities to be a brick wall defensively.

And on Saturday night, the Revolution’s failure to do that in a majority of the first 32 matches in the 2018 season saw their remaining three games, Saturday’s 2-0 win over Orlando City for starters, turn into mere exhibitions.

Thanks to DC United’s 1-0 win earlier in the day, The Boys In Blue were officially eliminated from playoff contention. For the third straight year, there will be no soccer gracing Patriot Place in the month of November.

And after the way the season began, so full of promise and hope for change under a new manager and with seven wins while playing a creative style of soccer, they only have themselves to blame for the way this season — and those playoff hopes — ended.

They could have done so much to change the fortunes of this season before it got too out of hand. They could have gone out and bought a left back to slide in when Chris Tierney tore his ACL in May, or when it was abundantly clear that Gabriel Somi wasn’t the answer.

They didn’t do that. They stayed pat.

By the time the Revs were in a funk offensively, it was in the week before the Secondary Transfer Window ended. They could have gone out and bought a proven finisher, especially when Teal Bunbury’s productivity tapered off to nothing.

They didn’t do that. They stayed pat.

Bad errors — individual mistakes — continued. Points dropped like shots at a fraternity mixer. The team dropped below the red line in early August, clinging to their playoff life into early October — until an 86th-minute goal by DC’s Russell Canouse, which occurred while the Revs and Lions were out on the Gillette pitch warming up and as the fans filed through the gates as dusk settled over Route 1 — poignant symbolism right there on the close of their playoff run, metaphorically-speaking — ended the dream… or the miracle, as Diego Fagundez called it during his post-match press conference.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the players were told of what had occurred down in the Navy Yard as they re-entered the locker room, and as Braintree native Scott Caldwell told BostonSportsJournal.com, no one had their heads down as the staff relayed the news.

Caldwell admitted the obvious.

“(We were) disappointed knowing we put ourselves in this situation, that we couldn’t do anything about it in terms of this season, but there’s a lot to play for, especially with our careers, our jobs, and just pride in general,” he said.

But yes, something could have been done. Something could have been done to help get this team back onto firmer ground, playoff-wise.

Yet as first-year manager Brad Friedel said afterward, there will be changes made to this club as the offseason approaches — shedding dead weight and bringing in his players, players that can play the style he wants.

Hopefully, there’s a finisher in there, gaffer.

“Results speak for themselves, I can’t argue with that, but it’s an evolution of what we’re trying to do,” he said. “We want to be very aggressive without the ball. That’s there for everyone to see. Where we’re at, there will be quite a few changes in the offseason. A lot of exciting changes that’ll happen in the offseason. You’re going to see some things in the news that comes out with New England over the next couple of months that people will sit back and realize, and we basically started our preseason tonight.”

Changes? Too little, too late for this year and the playoff hopes that the legions of Revolution supporters had through June.