There have been a number of season-ending injuries this year, mostly of the ACL variety. It says something about the progress of modern medicine that we've reached the point when that particular injury – the torn ACL – feels almost run of the mill (if it's not your knee, at least).

What happened to Will Johnson 8 seconds into the Timbers' loss on Saturday looked anything but run of the mill, however. And a double leg fracture, in the wake of horrible, career-altering injuries to Steve Zakuani and Kevin Ware (and hopefully not Paul George), even has the Portland captain's fiercest rivals sending good mojo:

Let's make sure 2 send out positive thoughts to @WillJohnson04 fierce competitor and a bitch to play against. Speedy recovery my man. #ptfc — Brad Evans (@brad_evans3) September 27, 2014

Greg Vanney's done a few things right in his brief time as head coach, though it remains to be seen if one of them is putting Bradley in place as a lone d-mid, with Jonathan Osorio pushed higher as more of a playmaker. Their set-up isn't rigidly codified in the way of Beckerman & Morales at RSL, but the effect has been to put more of the game at Bradley's feet and give him deeper starting points on the ball. He presents now as a triple threat: long-ball, combo play, or just take off running and try to catch him.

Poor Ben Zemanski wasn't quite ready for that third option.

All that said... I still don't think it's going to be enough to get TFC into the playoffs. Their game in hand is next weekend's trip to LA – basically a lot of miles in exchange for zero points – and the only team in front of them in the standings that looks like collapsing (Sporting) has a five-point cushion. That's a lot to make up in four games, especially when two of TFC's post-LA games (NY & NE) are on the road, and the two home games (HOU & MTL) aren't the gimmes they looked like a month ago, and especially when Bradley is still far too aggressive and adventurous to be a fulltime No. 6. He will let that backline get exposed at least a few more times this year.

But hey, things in Toronto aren't what they looked like a month ago, either. And even if that doesn't necessarily mean a trip to the playoffs – something TFC fans have never known – it can mean something else: hope, continuity, and a plan heading into next year.

TFC fans have never truly known that, either.

2. Winning the numbers game in D.C.

Thomas Floyd wrote a very nice piece at Goal.com looking at D.C. United veteran Davy Arnaud, who's experiencing a late-career renaissance as a box-to-box midfielder. Read it HERE.

Arnaud has been nails for United, whose 1-0 win over the Union on Saturday has them six points ahead of the East and comes pretty damn close to guaranteeing them homefield at least through the conference final. He and Perry Kitchen were, once again, a huge part of the result, and once again helped flout conventional wisdom by playing Philly's 3-man central midfield to a standstill in the middle of the pitch.

They did it by staying tight and connected:

Now, this is just an aggregate positional map; D.C.'s not going out there in a lineup looking like that. But it reveals a ton about who takes responsibility where, and this is basically Ben Olsen's way of saying "I have absolute faith in these guys to hold the fort and not get overrun even when outnumbered."

He's right to do so, as this observation from that Goal.com piece shows:

Staying connected is one key, and the other keys are this: Kitchen has shown ridiculous anticipation and reading of outlets, which means you just can't break out on United; and even when he's a step behind, Bobby Boswell steps up and becomes an ad hoc third central midfielder better than any other defender in the league.

Here's all of that on display; a Kitchen interception and shot, followed by a quick outlet, Boswell's step and a Kitchen recovery:

Notice that Boswell doesn't even come close to touching the ball. Plays like that are easy to overlook, and why it's so hard to explain exactly why defender X is better than defender Y. To the novice, that looks like a nothing play; to an MLS coach, it looks like guys who you can build a team around.

United suddenly have a lot of guys like that, including four from the last four drafts (Kitchen in 2011, Nick DeLeon in 2012, Taylor Kemp in 2013 and Steve Birnbaum this past year).

With that foundation and a willingness to pilfer productive, high-upside attackers from the rest of the league (they got Fabian Espindola, Luis Silva, Eddie Johnson and Chris Rolfe for a wasp nest, a racoon and three chunks of falling concrete), it's no surprise that they've been such a surprise.

3. Galaxy go HAM

The LA Galaxy are now 31-9-14 all-time in the regular season when AJ DeLaGarza and Omar Gonzalez play central defense together.

I'm gonna talk a bit about their attack and everything – because after they way they ripped New York's face off to the tune of 4-0 on Sunday night, how could you not? – but let's not forget that in a league where there are tons of questions about pretty much everybody's central defense, the Galaxy have two guys who've played together for almost a decade and have won two MLS Cups and two Supporters' Shields already. As much as anything else, that gives them a leg up on the competition heading into October.

Ok – maybe not as much as anything else, because for the Galaxy "anything else" includes Robbie Keane, Landon Donovan and Gyasi Zardes. The trio's counting numbers are off the charts: 43 goals and 34 assists, more than eight and seven entire teams, respectively (and exactly matches the Crew's total in both categories. Columbus is a playoff team, by the way).

So it's not surprising that LA are the only team in the league with more assists than goals, which says something about their ability to play cohesive, attacking football.

Want video proof? Here's a 16-pass build-up that led to Zardes' 16th goal:

Here's how it looks on a chalkboard:

The pass sequence that led to Gyasi Zardes' goal for @LAGalaxy: pic.twitter.com/ca4SuGtMCb — Paul Carr (@PCarrESPN) September 29, 2014

Of course, that doesn't compare to the 26-pass goal-scoring sequence they dropped on D.C. last month. It's worth noting that D.C. have the second-best defensive record in the league (though – yup – they didn't go with Arnaud & Kitchen in the middle for that one).

LA's goal differential is +32, the second-best mark in league history. The goal differential of the rest of the Western Conference playoff teams combined is +33. They are unbeaten in nine, and have a +19 goal differential in that span. They are 14-2-6 since mid-May.

I keep writing about LA in this column because they are historically great. And next year, when Donovan's gone and Keane and Marcelo Sarvas (so crucial to their succes) are a year older, they won't be. At least not as much.

Appreciate them now. And doubly so because they'll get to prove their greatness – or not – twice against Seattle, another historically great team (going by the numbers) to close out the regular season.

A few more things to ponder:

7. Some second-half heroics from Kekuta Manneh and Pedro Morales, combined with Portland's meltdown, got the Whitecaps back above the red line in the west.

That said, the 2-1 win over RSL still presents a problem: Vancouver's forwards still don't score.

6. The last time I gushed about LA, three weeks ago, I pointed out that the Galaxy are running away from the league in teams of chance generation and opposition half possession. Rating very high on the same metrics (top 5 in all categories except big chance generation) were the Columbus Crew, which came as something of a surprise given their middling status in the palyoff race.

They're still in danger of missing the playoffs, but over the last seven weeks they've turned more and more of those chances into goals. With Saturday's 2-0 win over Montreal they're 5-1-1 since mid-August and have scored multiple goals in five of those seven matches. That includes a 4-1 win over LA to start this run.

The Crew are really good right now, and I think they'll probably be playing in November.

5. I watched all of the 1-1 draw between Colorado and San Jose on Saturday night, and ended up thinking about the 2015 SuperDraft (that tells you all you need to know about the current state of affairs for both teams).

There is good news for 'Quakes fans: Your team is probably going to get a top five pick, and since they have needs everywhere, they will likely find somebody who can contribute – though there is one guy in particular I think they'll target:

Re: MLS draft, read about Ramon Martin del Campo, the defender surely topping Quakes draft board: http://t.co/BHvllTJeYP cc: @MLSAnalyst — Tim Froh (@TimFroh) September 28, 2014

It's a little more grim for Colorado fans, who traded away their top pick to Portland for Danny Mwanga.

Mwanga's just 23 and still has a ton of talent, but his career arc – 7 goals as a rookie, 6 games as a fifth-year veteran – is not an arc; it's a nosedive.

4. Jermaine Jones wins our Face of the Week at a canter, thanks to this lovely reaction to the technical difficulties during the national anthem before Friday night's huge 3-2 win at Sporting:

That's how JJ started the game; he ended it with THIS goal, one that will not find its way onto Erik Kronberg's highlight reel:

I'm no goalkeeping expert, but Eric Kronberg is going to want this one back. Positioning on Jermaine Jones' winner: pic.twitter.com/Kff4FBRRqs — Andrew Wiebe (@andrew_wiebe) September 27, 2014

3. I called the Sounders a historically great team above, and they very well could be. Two more wins makes them the second to ever hit 20 in a season, and like LA they could flirt with two points per game and two goals per game. Their attack is spectacular.

But, following Saturday's 4-2 win over Chivas TBD, there are still questions about the defense. Seattle are the only team in the league to have conceded a goal to Chivas since mid-July, and it's not a fluke: they've conceded 4 total goals in two games against the Goats.

2. Our pass of the week goes to Boniek Garcia in Houston's 2-0 win over Chicago:

That is as filthy a sequence – pass, touch, chip, save – as any I've seen all year.

1. It's been a tough season for Houston, but whoever their coach is, they'll go into next year with four World Cup veterans starting in midfield; three productive veterans up top; a true target who looked good before injury; two fullbacks who vary between "reliable" and "spectacular" (and a nice trade chip in Corey Ashe, if they feel comfortable moving him); a high draft pick thanks to this season's stink-bomb; and plenty of cash to improve the central defense.

And because life is unfair they'll probably be doing this in the already-stacked Western Conference.