Something has occurred to me recently. Watching Matt Cassel the last couple of weeks, I have noticed a few things that might have swayed my opinion about him a bit. I have been a big proponent of the "Matt Cassel's got to go" movement, citing his lack of progression as a QB this season. However, maybe I have jumped the gun a little too quickly and we need to revisit this topic a little further.
Let's start with the obvious, Matt Cassel started a game in 2008 for the first time since he was in high school. As a fourth year pro he was given command of a team for the first time since he was a teenager. Cassel was in a heated battle with Matt Leinart for the starting job at USC after Carson Palmer left, but he was beat out in camp and Leinart never looked back winning a Heisman and two national championships.
Somehow, Cassel was able to convince Scott Pioli and Bill Belichick that he was worth a 7th round flyer and the Pats drafted him. They looked like geniuses when everybody's All American Tom Brady went down for the season with a knee injury. Cassel came in and performed admirably completing 63% of his passes for over 3,600 yards 21 tds and 11 ints. But this is what we already knew. Why are we rehashing this? I will tell you.
The last two to three weeks I have noticed a positive difference in Matt Cassel. He has greater pocket presence, hanging tough in the pocket and stepping up when the pocket collapses around him. Stepping up! I didn't even know Cassel was capable of that. I've also noticed that he hasn't locked on his primary receiver or thrown it away. He has actually gone through his reads and found the open receiver. I also saw something I hadn't seen before either, which was Cassel scrambling, keeping his eyes downfield, finding the open receiver, and making a play.
So here's my thought, what if Cassel is finally getting to where he should be and has finally caught up to his age with his experience. We forget how little Cassel played around here cause he's in his third year. Players like Mark Sanchez and Matt Stafford are in their second years and they are making plays that Cassel isn't. Cassel has 4 years of NFL experience and one more year of starting experience over them. But wait, Cassel didn't get any experience in college. Stafford started every game for 3 years and Sacnchez started 16 games over a year and a half, which is more than Cassel even sniffed behind Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart.
Everyone already knows this and the excuse has been made before. I have been one that has said that it shouldn't be an excuse, that Cassel's starting experience in the NFL should be enough for him to be a solid QB and make the plays we need him to make. Then I got to thinking, are we valuing those years of experience too much? Most QB's come in and get two to three years of starting experience in college against college level competition. Then if they're good enough they go to the NFL and are expected to hit their stride after two or three years. That's four to five years of starting experience QB's should have before being expected to play at high caliber in the NFL. Matt Cassel has had two and a half of those.
All those things a player picks up on in college, Cassel is having to learn at the NFL level. I think what none of us have realized is that 8 years of sitting on the bench and not playing at full speed takes some time to shake off that rust. Assuming a normal QB gets two years of experience in college then that would put Cassel in his rookie year, and here we are at mid season and we have noticed some strides. Could it be? Have we all expected too much of Cassel and truly not taken his situation completely into account? I have taken a step back to realize this. You can practice all you want, but the bulk of learning has to come in game time action. The reason people like Matt Ryan and Matt Stafford can come in and show success quickly is because they had so much experience in college. Would you honestly expect somebody with no experience in college to come in and put up numbers right away? Looking at things this way, I don't think I would.
Here is what I'm trying to say. I am gonna take a step back on the "get rid of Matt Cassel" charge. I am seeing some improvement from a developmental standpoint and I like to see that, another half season of that improvement and who knows what could happen next year with his play. Cassel obviously has the skills (despite what I have said previously) otherwise he wouldn't have been drafted and wouldn't have played as well as he did in New England. However, it is unreasonable to think he should just play like that all the time after that one season. Cassel didn't have time to think that season and everything happened so fast and he was protected by his coaches to the point where not much COULD go wrong. His lack of experience needs to be taken into account. The speed of the game caught up to him last year and now it looks like things might actually be slowing down for him. If he can continue to build then maybe I will buy into the Matt Cassel experiment. He needs to perform better the rest of the season and I want one game where he wins us the game in the 4th quarter. If he can do that, I will be a believer and will not call for a QB in the draft next year. That's a big IF though.
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