Quincy Amarikwa: The Honeymoon is over

Unfortunately, it looks like it was just lightning caught in a bottle for a single moment, the perfect conditions meeting. Quincy has not changed and the Rapids are feeling the pain of it on the offense.

Quincy's hero complex combined with his less than stellar accuracy means two things for his game – he likes his goals to come from close range and he likes his goals to be of the spectacular sort. When I spoke of his goal against Chivas being lightning in a bottle, it's because he had the perfect opportunity to do just that; he stuck it in from right next to goal and was able to make a pretty little chip on the way there with no defenders in his way. Since then, the problem of Quincy's hero complex has only managed to get worse. He's tasted the forbidden fruit of good looking goals and now he wants more.

In the last couple of games that Quincy has appeared, he has played more like the MVP for the opposing team than a guy who started the season as the third out of six on a fairly deep gang of strikers. His play has been plentiful, and the goals have not. Quincy has started four games this season and appeared in a whopping nine games, with 12 shots toward goal. Only a miserable three of those shots managed to find the goal and only one found the back of the net. Playing as the high forward in most of his appearances, these numbers are completely unacceptable, and anyone who watched his latest debacle against Toronto can testify that his lack of shots are not from lack of chances. Numerous times, Quincy got the ball with only one or two defenders to beat and did one of the following two things:

Option A: Try and streak into the box by himself past the defenders, losing the ball at some point in the process.

Option B: Go all the way out to the wing, looking for a long cross into the area.

As such, those opportunities rarely if ever turn into shots simply because he seems to be scared to death to shoot the ball from outside the 18 yard box, possibly because he knows that accuracy is not his best asset. His ball skills aren't all that good either so he can never seem to get into the box, settle the ball and get a clean shot off toward goal. How desperate is he to be the last man back? Well, he unsurprisingly leads the team in offside calls against with five.

And then we come to possibly the most head-shaking aspect of Amarikwa's recent play; he seems to have gotten a taste for diving. Quincy seemed to spend more time on the ground than on his feet against Toronto. Whether it was from slide tackling just a bit too much or falling down before he could get a shot off on the slightest touch, Quincy's oft-diving ways may have actually cost Colorado the game. Right before half-time Quincy was brought down very hard at the very edge of the area, probably the best chance Colorado has had all season at getting a penalty called for them. (They are one of the few teams not to have had a chance at a PK this season.) Unfortunately, the surprisingly non-obtrusive ref on the day probably saw Quincy going down again, assumed it was business as usual, and let the game continue on its merry way.