Tribal Warfare
12-13-2009, 01:05 AM
Chiefs’ Cassel has yet to prove he is a future franchise quarterback (http://www.kansascity.com/sports/chiefs/story/1627214.html)
By ADAM TEICHER
The Kansas City Star
The Chiefs like to believe they have proof that Matt Cassel is capable of being their next great quarterback. The trouble is that most of that evidence came from last season, when Cassel played for New England instead of Kansas City.
“You’ve got to believe anybody who had the season he had last year is worth working with,” said former Chiefs quarterback Rich Gannon, who as a CBS analyst has worked a number of the Chiefs’ games this season. “He played really well. He got better each week. He took care of the football and brought them back to win a lot of games.
“So he proved what he can do under those circumstances. You look at that and you know what can happen if you put some playmakers around him and give him a good offensive line and a running game.”
Since the Chiefs are lacking those things, perhaps it’s predictable that Cassel has only rarely been that same player this season. Cassel’s passer rating is near the bottom among quarterbacks in the AFC, ahead of only a rookie, New York’s Mark Sanchez, and two players who have been benched, Tennessee’s Kerry Collins and Oakland’s JaMarcus Russell.
Cassel’s season hit a particularly rough patch the last two weeks. He committed four turnovers and completed less than half of his passes, and the Chiefs lost by a combined 60 points.
That doesn’t seem the stuff of a future franchise quarterback. The depth of his recent failures seems to suggest that Cassel is buckling under the burden of having to carry a Chiefs offense missing a lot of other important components.
But, like the Chiefs, Cassel is keeping afloat with the idea that because he’s done it before, he can do it again.
“I wouldn’t be here unless I played the way I did last year,” he said. “I know I can play well, play at a high level. I’ve shown it at times this year.
“I’m plenty confident in my abilities and what I’m able to do. I had some success last year. Obviously, we’ve struggled throughout the course of this year, and you just keep moving forward.
“I haven’t changed. Success hasn’t changed me, failure hasn’t changed me. I’m going to be consistent, so you’re going to continue to see me show up early to work and go home late and work hard and try to get this thing going in the right direction.”
The Chiefs won’t acknowledge it publicly, but they have to be a little bit fearful that Cassel is another in a line of one-year wonder quarterbacks, those who were good enough in a single season to earn a fat new contract and never played as well again.
Cassel was surrounded last year by superior offensive players with New England. Even when and if the Chiefs get back on their feet, they may never be able to provide Cassel a supporting cast like that.
“It’s a little early to say that,” said Dan Fouts, another former NFL quarterback who has called some Chiefs games this season for CBS. “Let’s give him another year or two and see how the team develops around him. There’s always the rush to judgment in these cases.
“Sometimes it just takes time. It’s just a tough situation there. A quarterback needs a good supporting cast. The Chiefs obviously need to make some upgrades at some positions. He proved it last year that he can play quarterback well in this league. Physically, he’s got the talent.”
Because of the way he played for the Patriots last season, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Cassel, 27, is still developing as a player. He was a backup in college at Southern California and for his first three seasons with New England.
The Chiefs would have to work hard to create a more difficult set of circumstances for a young quarterback to develop than the ones Cassel is playing under. Pass protection has been mostly lousy, their receivers lead the league in dropped passes and the running game only recently awakened from a season-long slumber. The defense is one of the league’s worst, so the Chiefs are continually playing from behind.
“It’s hard enough to play that position when everything is working right,” Buffalo quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick said. “When things start going wrong in other areas, it makes the job that much harder.”
In the preseason, the Chiefs fired Chan Gailey, their offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Cassel and his offensive teammates had to learn a new system on the fly.
Cassel has no dedicated quarterbacks coach to learn from and can’t spend an ideal amount of time during the weekly preparations with head coach Todd Haley, who calls the plays.
“The hard part for (Haley) is that he has to wear a lot of hats,” Cassel said. “He can’t be in meetings with us. He can’t be watching the film with us.
“It’s a much different dynamic. There’s a lot more learning on your own sometimes. There’s a lot less meeting time with the guy calling the plays. You want to always be on the same page with him. We’d all like to have more time to meet and do those kinds of things.”
Gannon said, “I’m looking at it through the eyes of a quarterback. Look at all the changes going on with this guy. It goes back to getting rid of Chan Gailey right before the start of the season and all of the new learning and everybody kind of scrambling to get on the same page. That right there is a lot for anybody. How has that impacted him?
“They’ve had a lot of change at receiver. They literally bring guys in on Wednesday and they play on Sunday. They got rid of Larry Johnson. So there’s constant change, and that’s hard on anybody and you’re talking about a young quarterback. He hasn’t been battle-tested until now.
“It’s hard for me to be critical of him when you look at what’s going on around him.”
Cassel’s toughness is beyond question. He’s been sacked 37 times, more than all but one other NFL quarterback, and keeps getting back up for more. That counts for something to his teammates.
A day or two before he calls a Chiefs game, Gannon will meet with certain Chiefs players, and Cassel is usually among them.
“In all our time together, he hasn’t complained about the situation,” Gannon said. “That to me speaks volumes about his character and toughness. It jumps out to me when you sit down with him. He really learned a lot from being around Tom Brady. He’s not an excuse-maker. He’s a guy that’s willing to shoulder responsibility and absorb a lot of the criticism.
“I’ve given him opportunities. I’ve asked him what’s going on with the receivers and the offensive line and everything, and he’s always looking for the positive. That’s important. As you go around the league and talk to players, there’s too many of them that want to tell you why it’s not their fault.
“So there are some positives to draw on there. They’re hard to see sometimes because of their record and the fact there hasn’t been a lot of success. But they’re there. That Pittsburgh game showed me something. I thought he played really well in the Cowboys game even though the Chiefs lost that one.”
The results are uneven at best. Cassel has led the Chiefs on several late-game touchdown drives and has one of the AFC’s best fourth-quarter passer ratings.
But he lags in many of the other important statistical categories. He completes only slightly more than half of his passes, though his receivers have often hurt his cause with dropped passes.
“His throwing accuracy is something that needs to get better,” Gannon said. “He’s missed some throws. He has a tendency to hold on to the ball too long. He takes a sack on first down and then they’re in second and long, and that makes it hard for the play-caller. He’s such a competitive guy that it’s hard for him to give up on a play. Young quarterbacks usually think they can make any throw and make any play. That changes only with experience.”
Cassel will continue to get experience. Haley yanked Cassel late in the third quarter of last week’s 44-13 loss to Denver but minutes later didn’t waver in saying Cassel would start today’s game against Buffalo at Arrowhead Stadium.
“I felt pretty comfortable when that game ended of where our quarterback was at,” Haley said. “Matt shows the competitiveness necessary, without a doubt. He shows the arm, he shows the accuracy, he understands what we’re trying to get done. He protects the football, for the most part.
“A lot of those things are things you can build on.”
By ADAM TEICHER
The Kansas City Star
The Chiefs like to believe they have proof that Matt Cassel is capable of being their next great quarterback. The trouble is that most of that evidence came from last season, when Cassel played for New England instead of Kansas City.
“You’ve got to believe anybody who had the season he had last year is worth working with,” said former Chiefs quarterback Rich Gannon, who as a CBS analyst has worked a number of the Chiefs’ games this season. “He played really well. He got better each week. He took care of the football and brought them back to win a lot of games.
“So he proved what he can do under those circumstances. You look at that and you know what can happen if you put some playmakers around him and give him a good offensive line and a running game.”
Since the Chiefs are lacking those things, perhaps it’s predictable that Cassel has only rarely been that same player this season. Cassel’s passer rating is near the bottom among quarterbacks in the AFC, ahead of only a rookie, New York’s Mark Sanchez, and two players who have been benched, Tennessee’s Kerry Collins and Oakland’s JaMarcus Russell.
Cassel’s season hit a particularly rough patch the last two weeks. He committed four turnovers and completed less than half of his passes, and the Chiefs lost by a combined 60 points.
That doesn’t seem the stuff of a future franchise quarterback. The depth of his recent failures seems to suggest that Cassel is buckling under the burden of having to carry a Chiefs offense missing a lot of other important components.
But, like the Chiefs, Cassel is keeping afloat with the idea that because he’s done it before, he can do it again.
“I wouldn’t be here unless I played the way I did last year,” he said. “I know I can play well, play at a high level. I’ve shown it at times this year.
“I’m plenty confident in my abilities and what I’m able to do. I had some success last year. Obviously, we’ve struggled throughout the course of this year, and you just keep moving forward.
“I haven’t changed. Success hasn’t changed me, failure hasn’t changed me. I’m going to be consistent, so you’re going to continue to see me show up early to work and go home late and work hard and try to get this thing going in the right direction.”
The Chiefs won’t acknowledge it publicly, but they have to be a little bit fearful that Cassel is another in a line of one-year wonder quarterbacks, those who were good enough in a single season to earn a fat new contract and never played as well again.
Cassel was surrounded last year by superior offensive players with New England. Even when and if the Chiefs get back on their feet, they may never be able to provide Cassel a supporting cast like that.
“It’s a little early to say that,” said Dan Fouts, another former NFL quarterback who has called some Chiefs games this season for CBS. “Let’s give him another year or two and see how the team develops around him. There’s always the rush to judgment in these cases.
“Sometimes it just takes time. It’s just a tough situation there. A quarterback needs a good supporting cast. The Chiefs obviously need to make some upgrades at some positions. He proved it last year that he can play quarterback well in this league. Physically, he’s got the talent.”
Because of the way he played for the Patriots last season, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Cassel, 27, is still developing as a player. He was a backup in college at Southern California and for his first three seasons with New England.
The Chiefs would have to work hard to create a more difficult set of circumstances for a young quarterback to develop than the ones Cassel is playing under. Pass protection has been mostly lousy, their receivers lead the league in dropped passes and the running game only recently awakened from a season-long slumber. The defense is one of the league’s worst, so the Chiefs are continually playing from behind.
“It’s hard enough to play that position when everything is working right,” Buffalo quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick said. “When things start going wrong in other areas, it makes the job that much harder.”
In the preseason, the Chiefs fired Chan Gailey, their offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Cassel and his offensive teammates had to learn a new system on the fly.
Cassel has no dedicated quarterbacks coach to learn from and can’t spend an ideal amount of time during the weekly preparations with head coach Todd Haley, who calls the plays.
“The hard part for (Haley) is that he has to wear a lot of hats,” Cassel said. “He can’t be in meetings with us. He can’t be watching the film with us.
“It’s a much different dynamic. There’s a lot more learning on your own sometimes. There’s a lot less meeting time with the guy calling the plays. You want to always be on the same page with him. We’d all like to have more time to meet and do those kinds of things.”
Gannon said, “I’m looking at it through the eyes of a quarterback. Look at all the changes going on with this guy. It goes back to getting rid of Chan Gailey right before the start of the season and all of the new learning and everybody kind of scrambling to get on the same page. That right there is a lot for anybody. How has that impacted him?
“They’ve had a lot of change at receiver. They literally bring guys in on Wednesday and they play on Sunday. They got rid of Larry Johnson. So there’s constant change, and that’s hard on anybody and you’re talking about a young quarterback. He hasn’t been battle-tested until now.
“It’s hard for me to be critical of him when you look at what’s going on around him.”
Cassel’s toughness is beyond question. He’s been sacked 37 times, more than all but one other NFL quarterback, and keeps getting back up for more. That counts for something to his teammates.
A day or two before he calls a Chiefs game, Gannon will meet with certain Chiefs players, and Cassel is usually among them.
“In all our time together, he hasn’t complained about the situation,” Gannon said. “That to me speaks volumes about his character and toughness. It jumps out to me when you sit down with him. He really learned a lot from being around Tom Brady. He’s not an excuse-maker. He’s a guy that’s willing to shoulder responsibility and absorb a lot of the criticism.
“I’ve given him opportunities. I’ve asked him what’s going on with the receivers and the offensive line and everything, and he’s always looking for the positive. That’s important. As you go around the league and talk to players, there’s too many of them that want to tell you why it’s not their fault.
“So there are some positives to draw on there. They’re hard to see sometimes because of their record and the fact there hasn’t been a lot of success. But they’re there. That Pittsburgh game showed me something. I thought he played really well in the Cowboys game even though the Chiefs lost that one.”
The results are uneven at best. Cassel has led the Chiefs on several late-game touchdown drives and has one of the AFC’s best fourth-quarter passer ratings.
But he lags in many of the other important statistical categories. He completes only slightly more than half of his passes, though his receivers have often hurt his cause with dropped passes.
“His throwing accuracy is something that needs to get better,” Gannon said. “He’s missed some throws. He has a tendency to hold on to the ball too long. He takes a sack on first down and then they’re in second and long, and that makes it hard for the play-caller. He’s such a competitive guy that it’s hard for him to give up on a play. Young quarterbacks usually think they can make any throw and make any play. That changes only with experience.”
Cassel will continue to get experience. Haley yanked Cassel late in the third quarter of last week’s 44-13 loss to Denver but minutes later didn’t waver in saying Cassel would start today’s game against Buffalo at Arrowhead Stadium.
“I felt pretty comfortable when that game ended of where our quarterback was at,” Haley said. “Matt shows the competitiveness necessary, without a doubt. He shows the arm, he shows the accuracy, he understands what we’re trying to get done. He protects the football, for the most part.
“A lot of those things are things you can build on.”