good qbs make others around them better. cassel has not done that yet. by this definition of 'good qb,' cassel has not been a good qb. you do not give qbs who are 'not good' contracts like he got and trade picks for qbs who are 'not good.'

Do you guys think that Pioli thought/thinks that Cassel is the next Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, or that he's the next Phil Simms?

If anyone thought he was the former, then the Patriots wouldn't have only gotten a 2 out of it, right?

And if he's the latter, then he needs precisely what Pioli is giving him, right?

We're basically taking a backwards approach, instead of our QB making everyone else better, we're getting guys to make our QB look better...especially by getting checkdown receivers for a guy who can't throw down field.

Yeah, but there's limits to that. Wilt Chamberlain couldn't beat Russell with his "4 cheerleaders" either.

Jordan needed Pippen.

Peyton can't do it all, obviously.

The list is endless. Making others around them better may get the 2009 Chiefs from shitty to sucky, but it's still sucky.

Haven't you watched the NFL in the last 10 years? You think Brady won 3 Super Bowls by chucking 20 yards downfield?

You want to win, or just win YOUR way, presumably with Mad Bomber Lamonica calling the shots.

I get your point, the problem is when you sit down and watch, it wasn't like Cassel was out there playing his balls off and everyone was letting him down. He was just as much of a problem as everyone else was.

He better be using this entire offseason to practice properly throwing passes that travel more than 10 yards downfield.

Ok you're misreading me, I'm not saying you have to throw bombs, but you have to at least have the threat of it.

A intermediate pass 10-20 yards is not asking that much either, the problem is Cassel is so inaccurate the further he gets downfield no team in the league respects those passes so the short passing game is clamped on.

Matt Cassel literally becomes a horrendous QB when the pass needs to travel longer than roughly 8 yards.

but jordan looked dominant with nobody around him (other than an aging gervin, IIRC) in his rookie year. peyton looked great his rookie year with little around him (other than a marvin harrison who hadn't shown much in his career and if memory serves, marshall faulk)--26 tds, 28 ints. chamberlain didn't look like shit while he was putting up mad numbers.

I recall a few brief moments where cassel looked a bit better than absolute ass. but he never looked up to jordan or peyton levels (bringing up those around him). you have to show more than a few flashes--and I'm not convinced I saw more than one or two flashes. in the nfl today, you need one of those top qbs to win. at this moment, we don't have one of those guys.

You exaggerate. He can throw deep outs and such. He has a perfectly decent NFL arm. What he doesn't have is touch on deep balls to get them over defender's heads.

And I said that when he was first traded to you guys. It's an issue, and he'll need to overcome it or he'll always be a pretty limited QB. If he can master it, however, he'll do very well.

that's actually one thing that makes me mildly optimistic... one could say that weis was one of the main causes of brady's success. if we're lucky, weis can mold whatever raw talent cassel has (I'm not sure how much is there, I'm no nfl scout) and turn him into something we haven't seen before. brady wasn't always brady, if you know what I mean.

First, you don't need a "top" QB to win. Brady wasn't really a "top" QB in 2001. He was a game manager. Roethlisberger has won twice by being a very good (not great) QB with a very good or great running game and defense in support.

Eli Freaking Manning won by defense, as did the Ravens in 2000 and the Bucs in, err, whatever year they won it. '02 I guess.

But you do need an above-average QB. Average probably doesn't get it done unless you have an epic level defense.

Second, football isn't like the other sports. The QB can look a bit ridiculous if he hasn't got much talent around him because the offense needs to be a precision instrument. And citing Manning's rookie year isn't necessarily relevant -- I think we all agree CAssel doesn't have his upside.

The question is what is his upper limit. I think it's a top half of the NFL QB, at least.

Agree with all of this, no question.

unfortunately, average would've been an improvement last year. dude, you apparently didn't watch cassel much last year. horrific. oh, he flashed a few times last year; but not enough to make me any more than slightly optimistic (thanks to weis). and our defense is a ways away (unless ty-jack comes through, we find a nose tackle somewhere, dj steps up, and berry is all world. best case scenario is maybe 10th ranked defense). we'll be lucky if cassel can step up to slightly above average and the defense can step up.

It's not his arm strength that's the problem, it's his lack of accuracy with it...

Cassel has a lot of things he has to overcome just to become a solid QB, consistency with accuracy, pocket presence, that's another major issue of his.

I can't recall where I read it, but an article from a while back (from an undisclosed gm) stated that pocket presence can be 'learned'--that it's a feel that you get the more experience you have.

sitting as long as he did (college plus through two years ago) is a long time to sit--if weis can work with him on accuracy and he obtains some pocket presence via just getting more reps in, we may have better than average on our hands. but I'm not holding my breath.