The number of voters in the power rankings has almost doubled in size now, but one thing has stayed the same. The Columbus Crew have always been a member of the top tier. Until now.

Back-to-back multiple goal losses has caused our MLS bloggers to lose faith in the Crew. Their embarassing 4-0 loss at home to the Seattle Sounders changed a lot of minds about the Crew's chances of competing for the MLS Cup. And as their hopes of being the first team ever to win three straight Supporters' Shields have all but vanished, Columbus now leaves only three Western Conference teams in our top tier.

Poised to replace the Crew in that slot are the New York Red Bulls. A win in L.A. on Friday night (Saturday morning for most of us) would probably do it.

On the other side of the spectrum we have the Chicago Fire, who were just one vote away from the bottom tier this week. Could anyone have predicted that a month ago? Did anyone think that the Fire would actually get worse by bringing in Nery Castillo and Freddie Ljungberg?