Last week on the popular MLS podcast Extra Time Radio, Matt Doyle, MLS’s Armchair Analyst, declared that NYCFC’s chances of making the playoffs were “zero”. His reasoning was that even though the season’s still relatively young, NYCFC had dropped so many points in their home games that there was no way for the team to recover.

It’s a point well taken. In its first season last year, the team had an 11 game winless streak where they dropped many points against the likes of the Union, the Fire, the Rapids and other teams that turned out to be not very good that season. So even though the team improved later in the year, it seemed like every week we had to either travel to the west coast or play the Columbus Crew. And so even though we weren’t mathematically eliminated until October, realistically our playoff hopes died in May. (As a fan of the team I feel entitled to the use of the first person plural.)

This year our schedule is front loaded with home games. We’ve already played more than a third of them and will have played 11 of 17 by early July. And the way MLS works, only teams that can gain points at home consistently make the playoffs.

So is history repeating itself? Say it ain’t so, Matt Doyle. To investigate his claim, I cooked up a metric called P.U.P.P.Y., which stands for Possibly Useless Playoff Prediction Yardstick.

Here’s how it works: Let’s assume a team needs 51 points to make the MLS playoffs. Since the league switched to 34 games a season, only 2 teams have missed the playoffs with 51 or more points. (Sometimes you can get in with a lot less, but you can’t be sure.) So to get there, teams have to average 2 points at home and 1 point on the road per game. (Also not a scientific number, but seems to be close enough to what playoff teams are actually averaging and makes for easy math.) So PUPPY is the +/- number that results if you compare a team’s actual record against those expectations. In other words if your team wins a home game, that’s 3 points. 2 points are expected, so that means +1 for your PUPPY. A home loss means -1, and so on.

So if your team’s PUPPY is positive for the season, you’re on track to make the playoffs. Good puppy. If it’s negative you need to make up some ground (or get very lucky.) Bad puppy.

Let’s use the 2 Canadian teams in the Eastern Conference as examples: Montreal currently leads the conference with 14 points. Their home record is 2–1–1 and their away record is 2–2–1. So where’s their PUPPY? At home they got 7 points out of 4 games. According to our assumption of having to average 2 points per home game, they needed to have 8 points, so that makes their PUPPY -1. On the road, they gained 7 points out of 5 games. For road games we’re only assuming a 1 point per game average, so that makes their PUPPY +2 for road games. Combine the two for a total PUPPY of +1.

Toronto FC is behind Montreal in the standings with 11 points. But Toronto have played only road games so far due to construction on their stadium. Their record is 3–3–2, so 11 points out of 8 road games, meaning their PUPPY is +3. So Toronto’s playoff hopes are even more secure than Montreal’s, though both teams look to be well on track.

So what does this mean for NYCFC? Here are the PUPPY numbers for the entire Eastern Conference as of this writing (05/05/16):

+3 Toronto FC

+1 Montreal Impact, Philadelphia Union

-2 Orlando City, DC United

-3 Columbus Crew

-5 NYCFC, New York Red Bulls, New England Revolution, Chicago Fire

So while NYCFC does in fact have the worst PUPPY in the East, 3 other teams are just as bad and we’re only a few points off pace. (An away win this Sunday at DC United would bring our PUPPY within 1 of theirs.) So it’s going to be an uphill climb, but it’s too early to declare the season over.

Go Pigeons!