Maybe Nigel de Jong will learn to stop being garbage if he gets suspended for 2 months

MLS didn’t lack for goals in Week 5, but it certainly lacked for human decency and impressive performances. Nigel De Jong injured a person again and doesn’t think he did anything wrong. No one in this league is any good, or bad. It’s time for MLS to go home, take a nap, have something to eat, then come back and try again later.

This weekend’s scores

Hey look, this idiot is still breaking people’s legs. What’s new?

Of course, De Jong thought there was nothing wrong with this tackle, and that Darlington Nagbe was unlucky to get injured. “It was a 50-50 ball. Normally, I always have those balls,” he said. And normally, he gets away with injuring people without much punishment.

Unlike most major European leagues, MLS will undercut their referees and suspend players for incidents that the ref saw and did not deem worthy of a sending off. Don’t be surprised if a suspension gets handed down to De Jong later this week, and hopefully it’s a long one. Axel Witsel was suspended for eight Belgian league and cup games for a foul that broke Marcin Wasilewski’s leg in 2009, and Brian Mullan got banned 10 games by MLS for a leg-breaking tackle on Steve Zakuani in 2011. Both remained physical players after their suspensions, but ultimately stopped recklessly injuring people. Harsh suspensions work.

But unfortunately, harsh suspensions didn’t heal broken legs. Wasilewski returned to his former level, thankfully, but Zakuani did not. He was robbed of his career. We don’t know the severity of Nagbe’s injury yet, but we do know that we won’t be seeing him play in the short term. The league has been robbed of one of its best players, all because no one’s ever seriously punished De Jong for what he’s spent a decade doing.

MLS produces something a bit different every season, but it appears this one is going to provide a lot of ammo for the league’s detractors. Take a look at the league table. The teams we’re used to seeing at the top are struggling. There’s plenty of reason to believe that Seattle, Portland, Columbus and Red Bulls just aren’t that good. The teams that we’re used to seeing at the bottom all made some good moves this offseason and probably won’t be embarrassing, even if they do fall off a bit and miss the playoffs. Even the top teams -- KC, RSL, Dallas and Montreal -- all have one glaring flaw or another.

Parity is great, but a homogenized league isn’t. And right now, it looks like everyone is ... kind of the same. There aren’t any great teams. There aren’t any bad teams. The only thing that anyone’s done to differentiate themselves from the pack this year is test out a W-M formation -- shout-out to Patrick Vieira for that. More managers need to be like him.

Someone needs to win some blowouts. Someone needs to lose for two months in a row. Someone needs to go on a goal-scoring streak. Please do something, anyone. I feel like I’m watching Diet Soccer and I don’t like it.

D.C. United entered this week with three goals from five games. They have way fewer talented soccer players than Vancouver does. So naturally, this happened.

Congrats to the residents of the Real Salt Lake Retirement Home for their braces.

This is not a ranking that has anything to do with how good a team is at soccer. It’s simply about how likely you are to be entertained if you choose to watch their game on MLS Live. Orlando keeps jumping around, I have no idea what to think of them as an entertainment product. The Fire have undone all of their opening week goodness.

1. RSL (unchanged)
2. Dallas (unchanged)
3. Orlando (up 7)
4. Sporks (up 2)
5. Impact (unchanged)
6. NYCFC (down 2)
7. Dynamo (down 4)
8. Timbers (unchanged)
9. Galaxy (unchanged)
10. Union (up 1)
11. Toronto (down 4)
12. Red Bulls (unchanged)
13. Sounders (up 1)
14. Whitecaps (down 1)
15. Quakes (unchanged)
16. Revs (unchanged)
17. DC (up 3)
18. Crew (down 1)
19. Rapids (unchanged)
20. Fire (down 2)

1. Bruce Arena will sort the Galaxy out to a point, but not enough to win MLS Cup.
2. Even though they won, Montreal should play outside in bad weather. The dome is bad.
3. The Quakes will magically start creating shots when they bench Simon Dawkins.
4. The Union are Actually Good, at least by Eastern Conference standards.
5. D.C. United’s four goals were a fluke and they are still a bad team.
6. Chad Marshall’s equalizer will not save Sigi Schmid from getting fired at the end of the season.

Shouts to the two whole Canadians who traveled to DC and their very cold and unimpressed friend. Have a great week, fam.