Is CJ Brown Leaving Town?

In last night's Fire-Chivas match, Tony Sanneh got the starting nod at central defense, despite both Jim Curtin and CJ Brown being healthy enough to make the subs list. Nobody seems to know why, or if they do, they're not telling. I tend to cut Dave Sarachan a lot of slack in his assessment of Sanneh, as I know that anyone who saw the defender live and in person at the World Cup in Korea knows what he's capable of.

But this just doesn't make sense. Not only has CJ been one of the most consistent players all year, holding down a backline with a rookie and a second-year man, but he's also been the "voice of truth." If you look at his quotes, he's been spot-on throughout the season, whether it's the frustration of not quite doing enough to get a result, or talking about why Logan Pause's red card against DC might not have been as ill-advised as some people would think.

Which leaves us with three scenarios, as far as I can tell. First, Dave may be juggling his lineup because of three matches in five days due to the rescheduled U.S. Open Cup match. This is the least controversial option. Second, CJ may speak the truth a bit too often, and is subsequently in the doghouse. Given Sarachan's historically bad relationships with veteran players, this doesn't seem out of the question.

Finally, CJ (and Jimmy, for that matter) might be on the way out of Chicago. Now, normally this would involve making up some minor injury to keep a player off the roster entirely, but you can kind of play the odds with a defender and figure he's not going to get into the game anyway, and therefore not risk injury.

I have no earthly idea which of these is the case, but I can't imagine things are terribly happy in the locker room these days, and the visit from Chivas USA served as a reminder of what happened last year when Jesse Marsch started to get even more outspoken. As with most of my negativity about the Fire these days -- and I may post the "unedited" version of my most recent chicago-fire.com column -- I really hope I'm wrong, or that somebody (Dave Sarachan, I'm looking at you) will prove me wrong, but a hunch is a hunch.