Right, he still may not turn out to be a top 5-8 QB. But still worth the risk to find out. When we have so many other huge holes to fill at the moment, drafting a QB in the first round or trading away the farm for someone seems like a bigger risk.

http://chiefsblog.kansascity.com/?q=node/712

Well according to Haley, Thiggy will have a chance to compete for the job. Which is good news to me. I have a feeling Thiggy will have to play lights out and Cassell will have to lay a huge egg for him to lose the starting job. But I really like at least giving lip service to the competition. Good for both players and good for the team.

tom brady got sacked 21 times in 2008. matt cassel got sacked 47 times in 2009. the offenses around them were largely the same. what could cause such a large difference?

People seem to forget that cassel was basically 2 different qbs last year. He went from playing like a backup to a legit starter in the 2nd half of the jets game. All of a sudden he was hitting the 10-20 yard passes and not taking ******ed sacks like he did earlier in the season. If you dont think he can get it done in late game situations, watch him run the 1.5 min drill with no time outs to perfection, taking the team the length of the field for a TD to tie it. No coincidence he goes for 415 and 3 tds vs miami the next week and is pretty good from that point on.

He still needs to improve his accuracy on the deep ball, but to say hes inaccurate is ******ed. Hes very good from 10 yards in and improved alot on the mid range passes throughout the season.

If he was just a pure product of the system, dont u think Pioli and Mcdaniels would know that more than anyone? Why is it that the guys who know the most about Cassel outside of people on the pats want him the most? Seems to me that those guys going after him proves his legitmacy more than anything else.

tons of coaches and gms have hard ons for "their guys" over better players from other teams. so no, it doesn't really prove anything.

This is what I said in the NFL Offseason thread a few days ago:

Now I've had time to think. There are numerous reasons as to why Cassel's numbers rose that don't just involve it being "pocket presence."

One could be how you attacked the Patriots offense in 2007. There were two ways of "beating" Brady, the first was to attack attack attack. All out blitzes, zone blitz packages, line stunts, ect. What happened was he found the hot receiver and the offense didn't change. The second was to sit back and try to force him into a mistake. From the games I saw I noticed teams tended to sit back.

Now if that QB changes but the offense stays similar what are you going to do? You are going to put the pressure on the new QB to try and find that hot receiver. Blitzing became more common. The Pats OL is slightly above average pass protectors for their offensive scheme. Cassel, most likely a .3 or .5 slower than Brady at getting rid of the ball, was sacked more, actually over twice as much sack % wise.

Now I don't have his sack% over the last part of his season but I'm sure its better, for numerous reasons. I think another factor needs to be considered is that Cassel did play against the easiest schedule in football last season. I don't know much about scouting QBs so I won't pretend to know and say he will or won't succeed. Just throwing some stuff out.

An interesting thing, Matt Light had 6.5 sacks in 07 and that raised only 1 in 08 and Nick Kaczur's went down from 6.5 to 3.0. The pressure came from up the middle, meaning a lot of blitzing.

+91248983290 and it continuously tilts me to no end

i dont think cassel is bad, i just dont see him being any better than thigpen, and thus a waste of a draft pick

but im also much higher on thigpen than alot of people

The Cassel thing it should also be noted is this was their first half schedule:

KC
@NYJ
Miami
SF
@SD
Denver
ST. Louis
@ Indy

Not great but harder than it's second half schedule sans Pittsburgh.

Buffalo
NYJ
@Miami
Pittsburgh
@Seattle
@Oakland
Zona
@Buffalo

Makes you wonder why Cassel played much better in the second half. His schedule was LOL bad. And in the Pittsburgh game he played pretty awful in after 2, 400 yard games ina row vs Miami and NYJ who are good but not amazing teams last year. Cassel got better but Cassel got pretty much owned in all the big games last year regardless of where they were scheduled and ran it up in the 2nd half of the season against the cupcakes. This is typical of most young passers but I question the validity of his second half being much better than the first half of his season b/c the schedule was much different. If SD, Indy, Pittsburgh were all at the tail end of the season I think the stats would look different.

now I generally hate DVOA as an individual stat, but it does adjust for defense and his 2nd half >>>>> 1st half per DVOA

I think some people don't realize exactly how good he played in some of those games. he wasn't just good he was lights out. look at his 2nd games vs the NYJ and Miami vs the first games vs these teams. (the 2nd game vs buffalo was played in a tornado)

and in the 1st half some of his "bad" games were better than the #'s indicated. like his game vs Indy were he actually played really, really well and should have been the hero.

how is a second round pick worth so much... isn't vrabel still pretty good also

It doesn't adjust for the Jets took the 2nd half of the season off and so did Zona in their game. Buffalo in the first half of the season >>> Buffalo in the 2nd half of the season as well. Maybe the Pats had something to do with that but it really isn't accounted for.

bump to move to other forum

yeah this. We'll be lucky to win 6.

Fired imo.

Nice call from February.

4-12 this year? Oakland and Denver are both pretty bad. Actually, the Raiders are possibly going to get 2nd this year in AFCW. Whatever that means.

Pollard released. Such a shame. You put a killer hitter's mentality with that talent and you'd have a HOFer. I like what we're doing so far. Just keep jettisoning people until you find someone who can play. This team is dreadful. Half our players are below replacement level anyway.

Who is starting week 1?

I think Cassell is going. The line opened preseason at +9 now it's 13. not sure what's going on

Pretty sure everyone thinks KC is horrible and Balt is really good. They are probably right.

kc's offense probably wasn't going to be very good to begin with. add in the firing of gailey and uncertainty of who is starting at qb against an awesome ravens' d and yeah. large spread widens

I was just confused because outside of uncertainty at qb, I don't think anything has really changed. I can't see cassell being 4 points better than croyle or thigpen anyway. Obv KC sucks and Balt is good but 4 points is a pretty big swing. I like KC +13

glad I didn't bet KC +13. I had Balt in a survivor pool so I had to root against the chiefs for first time ever. Sucks Cassell didn't play, here's to hoping I get to see more than 2 games this year on TV (both charger games)

LOL @ pass rush / defense of Chiefs, watching shortcut of the game and this is hilarious.

edit: Spoke bit too soon. Doing a decent job in the 2nd quarter. Flacco is pretty sick at avoiding pressure.

Chefs actually played Balt pretty well and kept it close. The last TD is deceiving, as they could have taken a knee and or kicked a FG instead of taking it in for 6. Our pass rush was/is very weak. It also didn't help the D that Flowers was out. Flacco looks really good too. I still don't think KC will win more than 5 games, but they might at least give a stronger effort than I originally thought.

the chiefs gained 188 yards and gave up 501. that is absolutely horrible.

the 501 is a little deceiving because the chiefs had 2 possesions that took <1min total with the punt block td and the near pick 6. our defense still sucks but not as bad as those stats look imo.

I think there is a high probability of another 2 win season especially if we lose at home to the raiders next week. Playing the entire NFC east weeks 3-6 is going to crush this young team