Are bonus games still a thing? Looking at Austin FC's history against Eastern Conference teams

One of the greatest wins in Austin FC history brought about one of the greatest digs the team's ever encountered.

For those who remember April 16, 2022, you'll remember that Austin FC was down 2-0 in the 80th minute at D.C. United, and you'll remember that the visitors roared back with three goals in ten minutes and stoppage time change, and you'll remember that the comeback started shortly after Pollo — the de facto rubber chicken mascot who started as a "drunk idea" and became a beloved club icon – was returned to the Verde contingent after being confiscated by an overzealous security guard before the match.

And you might remember that after the match, a stunned Chris Bils took in the fact that Verde sat above the top of the West following that improbable win.

And then Andrew Wiebe launched the concept of the "bonus game," in an exchange with Austin fan Kevin Morris, which led me to write a column titled "Maybe someday, Andrew Wiebe will believe in Austin FC, too," which may have had some part in the "Keep Doubting Us" narrative that Verde fans rallied around until they hit the LAFC wall in the Western Conference Finals that year.

But maybe, looking at it with hindsight, Wiebe was onto something?

Wiebe defined a bonus game as a "match vs likely non-playoff team not in your conference, thus a win feels nice but it’s neither an indication of being an elite team nor does it deny a direct competitor points in the playoff race."

Update! I got a quote from Wiebe explaining the reasoning (and the dynamic at the time) a little bit clearer:

My memory – and listen, in the ETR (Extra Time Radio) days, takes flew fast and furious and often off the cuff in the heat of conversation – is that Austin supporters were flooding my mentions (credit to you all for being passionate and vocal) with way-too-early claims of greatness.

Beating what was the year before a HISTORICALLY BAD Cincinnati at home on opening day was fun, no doubt, but not a referendum on Austin’s quality. Same for Miami the next weekend.

“Bonus games” was another way of saying “settle down, it’s a long year and beating bad teams cross conference in Weeks 1 and 2 will not define your season.” The idea of Bonus Games is still a thing. In-conference games naturally have more bearing – three points for you takes three points from a direct playoff rival – on the standings at the end of the year and thus playoff positions. However, the version Austin fans know (and perhaps still loathe) was very specific to their situation in 2022 … and I hope was a whole lot of fun banter for all of us!

Specifically, and I surmised this is what he was after, Verde benefited from starting the season with a 5-0 win against FC Cincinnati (who looked like they were headed to a fourth straight bottom-dwelling season but turned out to be Actually Good) and a 5-1 win against Inter Miami (but this was Brek Shea's Miami, not Lionel Messi's Miami).

Those two matches, plus the comeback win against D.C., got them on a 3-0-0 start against East teams that season; they'd finish 6-1-1, only losing a home match to a Red Bulls team they'll again host on Saturday night (though certainly different than the team they faced at that time).

If you're judging by points per game, Verde's best season against the East came in 2022 — perhaps unsurprising given Verde experienced a lot of superlatives that year. Their 2.375 PPG in 2022 (in matches against eight East opponents) edged out their 2 PPG in 2023, though that season, Verde managed to go undefeated in all six West vs. East matches with a 3-0-3 record. In 2024, Verde had a decent but less successful 2-2-2 record.

As I explored a couple of weeks ago, Austin FC finished 2022 at 1.64 PPG and 2023 at 1.14 PPG, so they finished far worse overall than they did against East teams. (That doesn't necessarily mean that Austin should lobby to move to the East, though they would have made the playoffs in 2024 with their West-heavy record were they suddenly moved to the East.)

In two 2025 matches against East teams, Austin FC has a loss to Cincinnati, which was the just result based on Evander's play alone, and a draw to Atlanta United, which looked like it would be a narrow win until sub Jamal Thiaré equalized in the second minute of stoppage time.

In 2021, with a schedule still borked by COVID-19, Verde only played two East teams, losing to Nashville (which was West in 2020, East in 2021, West in 2022, then back to East by 2023), and then drawing Columbus 0-0 in the second-ever home match in Q2 Stadium.[[1]]

That means if Austin loses to Red Bulls on Saturday night, it will be on its worst form against East teams ever in a single season, with a home match against New England and away trips to D.C. (hide Pollo!) and Montréal (cacher le poulet!) remaining.

But are they bonus games?

Of the eight teams Verde played in 2022, five were playoff teams per the perfectly-reasonable seven-teams-make-it standard, and Charlotte finishing in 9th place meaning it would be a playoff team by today's standard. Of Austin's 2022 opponents, only Atlanta (surprising) and D.C. (not so much) were below past and present playoff lines.

Visiting the 2022 MLS season previews to confirm the preseason calculus on those teams led me to a certain set of predictions I'm just going to include here so you can reminisce.

In 2023, Verde won three of four from non-playoff teams (10th place Montréal, 12th place D.C., and 15th place Toronto). It drew Miami away, though it was just barely pre-Messi Miami. Against the two playoff teams, Verde drew 5th-place New England and 8th-place Red Bulls. Incidentally, while 3-0-3 against the East, Verde was 7-9-12 (or 1.17 PPG) against other West teams and missed the playoffs, even with the "bonus games" that effectively kept it from getting much worse.[[2]]

Against non-playoff East teams in its first four seasons, Austin is 6-2-3, or 1.91 PPG, which is definitely better than its lifetime 52-67-35 record in regular season games, good for just 1.24 PPG (calculating 191 points against 154 matches).

But are the Red Bulls good?

The current standings will tell you, perhaps deceptively, that the Red Bulls are an enigmatic team. They're 7-1-1 in what is being called Sports Illustrated Stadium and then they're 1-5-2 on the road. They're currently 6th in the East; at first glance, they appear to be the East version of LAFC and Seattle, currently 5th and 6th in the West, in part due to a similarly glaring home/road discrepancy.

That's when I turned to Mark Fishkin, a longtime Red Bulls expert and co-host of The Seeing Red Podcast. What he's saying leads me to believe that Austin FC might be catching the New Jersey-based team at just the wrong time, after catching a number of teams at seemingly just the right time this season.

"The Red Bulls started this season on a very mediocre 3-3-3 clip, but since then, they've won seven of 10 and have advanced to the quarterfinals of the Open Cup," he observed. "While there is a big discrepancy in their home record vs. their one away, the team won twice on the road in May, a 4-1 win at Colorado Springs in the Cup, and at original rival D.C. United in the league. New York has scored 10 times over their last three matches, while conceding only twice.

"The Red Bulls will be buoyed by the return of 2024 Comeback Player of the Year Lewis Morgan, who has played only a single match this season before picking up another injury," he continued. "He's back healthy now, and may see the field on Saturday. While the jury's out over whether the Red Bulls are 'good,' the team is in the best form of the season."

So, while bonus games might exist, it doesn't appear that the Red Bulls match will be one of those. And although you might argue that Verde were gifted one bonus game this year, you can also see that those results aren't always guaranteed. Jamal Thiaré certainly had something to say about that.

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[[1]]: That's one of the few home matches I've missed in five years; I did watch that match from Finn McCool's in New Orleans, though.

[[2]]: For what it's worth, 2023 is a year where 10th-place Portland would have leapfrogged Charlotte to be 9th place in the East, in the way that 10th-place Austin would have leapfrogged Atlanta to make the East playoffs in 2024.