Ten things to note from Week 2

While sweeping up after the MLS weekend party, here are a few things I found lying around:

1. Let's just go ahead and label April the silly season in Major League Soccer.

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The underrated Gonzalo Segares has been a standout for the Fire so far.

The month is an unbeautiful wasteland of overreactions and knee-jerks. Fans and pundits are equally guilty of celebrating each 90-minute session with a postgame cocktail: one part cogent analysis, one part mad rush to judgment.

For instance, last week New England was soaring after it crunched the Houston Dynamo, which it lost to in the league championship last season. But this week the Revolution are reeling after a 4-0 stumble. The truth: Teams muster a cache of motivation and almost always rise in a season's initial rematch of title-game contenders. You must go back to 1999 to locate a win for the league champs in one of these early, rematch encounters. So in honestly analyzing New England, we're really back to square one.

Individually, Sainey Nyassi looked in Week 1 as if he was shot from one of those Gillette Stadium muskets. This week Chicago defender Gonzalo Segares made Nyassi look quite ordinary, reminding all of us to tap the brakes a little before we declare somebody the next Ryan Giggs.

Last week, the Galaxy couldn't kick straight and, according to some, Landon Donovan had lost it. This week, Donovan and the Galaxy are all that again. Just remember, the Galaxy bullied a pretty tame San Jose side. Ruud Gullit's side professionally took care of business -- but his team still has issues aplenty.

Again, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Same with Houston, which has just a point from two matches but is currently hamstrung with midfield injuries.

All of this is to say that events of April can make for polite conversation and may even trip some early alarm bells, but they must be properly weighted with perspective. The season, of course, is a marathon rather than a sprint.

2. Was that really Santino Quaranta looking all silky smooth and skillful in a DC United shirt? More importantly, is this finally the big breakthrough? Or is it just another one-off thing, a waltz through Toronto's messy defense, the latest tease in a career tediously rife with "failure to launch" moments? The well-traveled former wunderkind has been in MLS eight years now, so this is surely his last stop before someone punches his one-way ticket for the USL Express.

3. I won't name names here, because I can't be sure this isn't happening at other MLS stadiums. But here's a word to employees inside the funny, furry mascot suits we see at some venues: Mocking the pregame national anthem with cutesy hand gestures is a bad, bad idea. So cut it out. I'll list names next time.

4. Two incidents in Round 2 were strikingly similar in how they happened and how they changed games. Rev's midfielder Jeff Larentowicz was ejected from Thursday's ESPN2 match in Chicago, and Toronto tough guy Kevin Harmse, never far from his next red card, was removed from TFC's waterloo at RFK.

Both cases were clumsy, overaggressive tackles at best. You perhaps could argue that both challenges deserved yellow instead of red, especially because both occurred early in matches. They both effectively killed any chance for improbable rallies.

But the players bear plenty of responsibility, especially because neither tackle made much strategic sense. Both were in about the same spot on the field, well into the opponents' half. Neither acted in response to an imminent and threatening counterattack, so the risk-reward quotient was badly askew. (Didn't everybody learn from Pablo Mastroeni's mad moment in World Cup 2006?)

So anybody feeling an urge to defend Larentowicz or Harmse should conquer it immediately. In both cases, that's just not smart soccer.

5. Guys who continue to surprise me, in a good way: Bouna Coundoul and Rapids teammates Nick LaBrocca and John DiRaimondo. Guys playing as well as anybody in the league: Sacha Kljestan, Shavar Thomas, Segares. Important pieces that need to do more: Ned Grabavoy, Maurice Edu, Justin Mapp, Duilio Davino. Guys who rebounded from Week 1 do-overs to be Week 2 wonders: Chris Klein, Donovan, Kenny Cooper.

6. Guys who may need to do a few more "push-aways," as in, push themselves away from the dinner table: Alvaro Pires. Pricey foreign signings who need to show a little more: Kenny Deuchar, Carlos Marinelli, Luciano Emilio. Guys who need a little more "shut up and get on with it" in their games: Maykel Galindo.

7. Speaking of "shut up and get on with it," what happened to Cuauhtemoc Blanco the other day? He stayed upright when hit, he didn't yap at the officials and he generally behaved like some buttoned-up dorm monitor. It was refreshing.

8. Two quickies about jerseys: Chivas USA just started a pretty cool promotion, where they'll give away players' shirts to (mostly) randomly selected fans after each home match. That's a nice, inventive touch.

And MLS marketing mavens, take note: In Toronto and Houston, officials immediately created an association with a color, stuck with it, and now reap the rewards. Fans show up in orange in Houston and red in Toronto, and it's very cool.

Too many MLS markets have fumbled that opportunity by juggling their colors and kit designs.

9. Since I chewed on KC last week for that peculiar angle on their main TV shot, it's only fair to note that the Wizards got their broadcast sorted out nicely. That's par for the course now. The club is quite aggressive in approaching any opportunities to improve the operation, leading the charge on hiring technical directors, carving out a better practice setup, etc.

And nice job, too, on hiring Bruce Arena as analyst on some early regional broadcasts. (Only thing: someone remind Arena to step aside with the monotone analysis when some hungry forward is racing madly toward goal.)

10. Was it my imagination, or did I really see the Galaxy's Alan Gordon tying his shoe as a Los Angeles counterattack came sweeping past? That's probably not going to make the club's postseason highlight video.

Steve Davis is a Dallas-based freelance writer who covers MLS for ESPNsoccernet. He can be reached at BigTexSoccer@yahoo.com.