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Marry/Boff/Kill the 2015 Fire: Adaílton

Adaílton Jose dos Santos Filho comes up for the vote - was he the victim of ill circumstance? Undone by weird partnerships? Or just not up to the task?

Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

"Marry/F**k/Kill" is a game of the Internet age, and the rules are simple: name a group of three people ("Iron Man and Thor and Captain America," "Blanche, Rose or Dorothy"), and ask the crowd to choose one fate for each of them - one to partner with for good, one explored for a connection but not kept, and one cast off into the outer darkness. Fans of the dearly-departed sitcom 30 Rock will recognize this game in its safe-for-primetime version, Marry/Boff/Kill, which name we're borrowing because this is SB Nation, and there's, like, kids in here, maaaaaaan.

Here at Hot Time, we're going to use the game to talk about players - specifically Chicago Fire players. We're going to use it as a way to talk about the roster, player by player, in terms of their performance, contract details*, and potential going forward. And we'll do it all with an eye toward 2016 and beyond.

It works like this:

  • ‘Marry' indicates a desire to keep the player at their current number or sometimes a bit more;
  • ‘Boff' (i.e., ‘F**k) means that we're, uhh, f**king the player over, asking for modifications to their contract or running them through the Re-Entry Draft process - we're interested, but not on these terms; and
  • ‘Kill' means we're not even interesting in hooking up - a 'nope.' If under contract for 2016, we'd prefer terminating the player's contact with CF97.

We have previously placed David AccamKingsley BryceJon BuschGreg CochraneRazvan CocisDaneil CyrusPatrick Doody and Collin Fernandez up for a vote. Today's subject is 32-year-old Brazilian center back Adaílton.

Adaílton

2015 stats: 17 appearances, all starts, 1505 minutes; 1 goal.

32-year-old international centerback. $200,000 base, $244,500 guaranteed.

The Case for 'Marry:' The case for keeping Adaílton at his current salary - which is on the verge of automatic-starter money for a defender in MLS - starts and ends with one's opinion of the coaching job done by Frank Yallop and crew in 2015: Was Adaílton a victim or a co-conspirator in the gradual destruction of the Fire's defensive solidity? The Brazilian showed signs in the early season of being a good MLS centerback in the right setting - his marking in fluid situations is very good. With the right partner (the 'Marry' rationale goes), he could yet excel.

(Follow-up question for the comments: Should voting 'Marry' on Adaílton mean automatically voting 'Kill' on Larentowicz when he comes around? Discuss.)

The Case for 'Boff:' Keeping Adaílton at a lesser salary requires much less of a conceptual back-bend than a 'Marry' vote. Flipping the whole roster is never a great ploy, and here's an experienced guy who's already decided to be here who isn't complete schiesse. And depth is important; having a starter-ish marking back on the roster would be useful no matter who the new manager is. Problem is, there's no guarantee CF97 has a way to make this happen; this might be the most fanciful of the options.

The Case for 'Kill:' This, at least, isn't fanciful. At some level, it might be best to burn that defensive unit all the way down, stir the ashes into the ground, and plant something completely different for 2016.

Have your say, Fire family: Adaílton: Marry? Boff? or Kill?

*Please note that we are taking the MLSPU salary information at face value in this exercise. It's common knowledge that the information isn't 100 percent correct, yes. If someone from the front office would like to provide us with superior data, we would be deeply appreciative.