The New York Red Bulls remain one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference, just as they have been for the past few seasons.
This year, though, something is different.
Call it the aura, or, as Alejandro Bedoya suggested this week, simply the absence of Tyler Adams, but the 2019 Red Bulls don’t instill the same fear in opponents as their predecessors. The suffocating compactness and exhausting-to-watch-it running haven’t been there this year, and the result has been 48 goals allowed through 31 games. That’s 15 more than Chris Armas’ side gave up all of last season.