D.C. United season review: Chris Korb

It was August of 2015 when Chris Korb tore his ACL when D.C. United were on the road against New York City FC and since then, the outside back had been working on getting back to some form of game shape. He had setbacks in 2016 that caused additional surgeries, and he was unable to make the 2017 preseason roster.

Nevertheless he trained and worked to get back on the first team, and signed with the team in May, appeared in one game with the Richmond Kickers and found himself coming on in a blowout loss against the Philadelphia Union for his first minutes in 21 months, and wound up playing in 16 games (starting 13), with an assist in 2017. Korb deserves every bit of credit in the world for coming back.

That said, there are two certainties that one could say when it comes to things that occur in 21 months: D.C. United’s outlook has improved to the point where Korb would not have to be leaned on nearly as much, and Korb isn’t going to be the same Korb, shinpads aside. On the latter, he was down in most every offensive metric WhoScored charts (Passing Accuracy, Shots per Game and Key Passes were all at career lows), he saw the ball fewer times and did less with it to boot. Defensively his tackles and interceptions were each less than half per game than his career worst as well. Korb may have been back, but he wasn’t really back. On the former, here’s the starting XI from that 2015 game:

By my math, 2 of those players retired (Saborio, Rolfe) with another hinting at it loosely (Boswell), 1 went to the NASL (Doyle), 3 went to Europe (Kitchen, Hamid) and 1 may going out the door soon (Franklin).

Several things are going against Korb heading into 2018: while he’s making a hair above the senior minimum salary, his option is club held. Assuming Sean Franklin departs and Korb stays, Korb would become the oldest defender. With Taylor Kemp presumably returning healthy at the start of 2018, and Chris Odoi-Atsem and Nick DeLeon vying for right back, the market for a 30-year old depth player who shredded one of his knees would have to be slim.

But you’re not here to be swayed by me, you’re here to answer: