Teicher:Cassel not a major contributor to offense against Eagles
 

Cassel not a major contributor to offense against Eagles
By ADAM TEICHER
The Kansas City Star

PHILADELPHIA | It wouldn’t qualify as a day off for Matt Cassel, not after he hit the deck three times in the first half alone because of Philadelphia’s fierce pass rush.

But Cassel threw just 18 passes in the Chiefs’ 34-14 loss to the Eagles on Sunday, a tiny amount given the double-digit deficits the Chiefs faced in the game’s final 2 1/2 quarters.

He was asked to throw just eight times in the second half, but handed off to Larry Johnson 12 times in that span.

“As a quarterback, you don’t second-guess anything,” Cassel said. “You just try to execute the offense and try to have success at what you’re doing.”

The Chiefs’ biggest pass play came from wide receiver Mark Bradley, who after taking a lateral from Cassel tossed a 26-yard pass to Jamaal Charles. Cassel’s longest completion was 13 yards.

So, other than Cassel’s two touchdown passes — a 13-yarder to Bradley and a 9-yarder to Bobby Wade — he delivered virtually nothing of value.

“As the quarterback and as the leader on the team, you have to stay positive,” Cassel said. “There is light at the end of the tunnel. We’re doing good things. We have to eliminate the bad football. Penalties killed us. We have to eliminate that and keep working hard.

“We’ve got enough players where we can go out and compete with anybody. We just have to eliminate the bad football. We’ve just got to keep working hard, keep our heads down and come out of this thing on the other side.

“We can compete with anybody in the NFL. We just need to make better decisions when we’re out there and eliminate the penalties.”

The Chiefs didn’t appear to have much of an interest in competing with the Eagles. Their running game dominated the second half, a decision made by coach Todd Haley in part because of the pressure Cassel faced early in the game.

“A lot of times,” Cassel said, “they were bringing more than we could block.”

The touchdown pass to Bradley in the second quarter ended the Chiefs’ only sustained drive of the game. It cut Kansas City’s deficit to 14-7 and appeared to give the Chiefs some life.

But on Philadelphia’s next play, Eagles quarterback Kevin Kolb threw a 64-yard touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson, putting his team ahead again by 14 points.

That was as small a deficit as the Chiefs would face the rest of the way. Their final touchdown came in the final minutes after a Philadelphia fumble gave the Chiefs the ball at the Eagles 20.

“The energy on the sideline changes,” Cassel said, referring to Kolb’s momentum-changing pass to Jackson. “We didn’t do anything offensively really to re-establish that momentum. We fought an uphill battle all day.”

“We can compete with anybody in the NFL...."

bwha ha haha

He means, that they could compete against SOME DIII teams.

“A lot of times,” Cassel said, “they were bringing more than we could block and some of those times it was their crippled water boy all by himself.”

hey we can take the browns........................... maybe :doh!:

LMAO

Funny how the Saints didn't seem to have any problems with the Eagles blitzing or defense when they hung close to 50 points on them last week.

This is a sign the Chiefs were out-schemed on offense.

I think well have a shot week 15 against the Browns.

Let us pray!!!!!!!!

We may have a chance sooner in game 6 against the Redskins,although last year our first regular season win came in week 4 against the Broncs and the other win in week 13 against the Raiders.
So if we get 2 wins this year,and lose half our games by 7 points or less like last year, that's sure to be a sign of progress right?

I also hope Cassel can match or surpass the obviously inferior Tyler Thigpen.
Thigpen had passing yards stats from 2008 of 2,608 with another 386 rushing for 2,994 total yards.
Of course we are told by those in the know,that Cassel is far superior to Thigpen as a QB,he must be a lot better or they wouldn't be paying him all that money right,lol.

The Saints O-line is about 1000x better than ours too

Thigpen also had Tony G. at TE. You can't compare season-to-season. A 1-win KC team this season might be better than a 2-win KC team last season. Who did they play? Did the opponents improve? How did the ball bounce? It's not just about improving the W total by 1 game.

I was just making some observations,and another one that may mean nothing is that Cassel has made 3 touchdown passes in 3 games for 331 yards,so he had better get those numbers up to prove his vast 60M superiority to Thigpen by the end of the season.
And just a btw Cassel and Croyle have the same 66.7% QB rating lol.

Did you really expect the chiefs to put out a similar effort to the saints? drew brees is one of te best qb's when reading the blitz. cassel is no brees and our wr's would not see the field (except bowe) if they played for the saints.
Posted via Mobile Device

Well that's what happens when you can find guys like Colston in the 7th round while we're busy drafting Jake O'Connell.

Hard to improve your numbers when you make so few pass attempts, don't have great targets, and get sacked and pressured. The question is, HOW were those sacks and pressures generated? Everyone knew the O-line wouldn't be great--even Haley and Cassel and Pioli--and everyone knew that the KC QB would have to evade and make some plays. Since I haven't been able to watch a full game, I don't know. Is Cassel getting sacked unavoidably? Or is he making bad decisions? If it's the former, it's not his fault; if it's the latter, he needs to improve in that area.