Can Fire avoid back-to-back last-place MLS finish?

While Chicago Fire forward Joey Calistri had success early in the season, he has only played in 13 games this year. Associated Press

The end for the 2016 Chicago Fire came Wednesday night in Seattle.

Not the end of the season -- there are still four games on the schedule -- just the official end of the Fire's MLS playoff hopes, which died with its 1-0 loss to the Sounders.

That means there's only one way to describe this season: a failure. And this kind of failure has become a habit at Toyota Park.

Failing to even come close to making the playoffs, the club might become the first team in league history to finish with the worst record in two consecutive seasons. For now, the Fire is 20th in the 20-team league, 5 points behind Columbus and Houston, which are tied for 18th.

Now first-year general manager Nelson Rodriguez and first-year coach Veljko Paunovic can put aside their relentless positivity and optimism and start looking to next season, the club's 20th.

Now maybe they will give homegrown players Collin Fernandez (Downers Grove), Drew Conner (Cary), Patrick Doody (Naperville) and Joey Calistri (Deerfield) some playing time. Only Calistri has been an option for Paunovic this year, earning 339 minutes in 13 games, most of them early in the season.

It's not that Paunovic has refused to play young players. Draft picks Jonathan Campbell and Brandon Vincent have been regularly featured on the back line. Brazilian right back Rodrigo Ramos, 21, also saw a lot of playing time until he recently fell out of favor. Paunovic just doesn't seem excited about the club's academy graduates, saying he has to play the best players while the team had any hope for the MLS playoffs.

That reasoning is gone now. And with Columbus, Saturday's opponent, also basically done, the coach can't say he has to field his best lineup for the integrity of the league.

Might as well play the homegrowns and give them a chance to show if they belong.

It's not the only change the Fire needs to make, though.

At times the team has impressed with its effort, but those few times just hid another flaw: this team doesn't have enough talent or leadership to compete in MLS consistently. The years of trying to sneak by with midlevel signings have been fruitless and frustrating.

There will be many changes to the team roster again this off-season, but high on the agenda must be to make a couple high-level signings.

If team officials want to avoid another failed season in 2017, they need to expand the payroll. The Fire needs to sign a pair of big-name players who can bring talent and leadership to Chicago.

Even if they can't carry the Fire back to the playoffs, maybe a player the caliber of a Kaka or Robbie Keane can at least make the club interesting to watch again.

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