Do you know who Matt Cassel is? No? Let me tell you. The 7th round (230th overall) pick in the 2005 NFL Draft was a QB at USC, he played behind two great quarterbacks in Carson Palmer, on the Bengals, and Matt Leinart the current USC QB who will be on a NFL team come July. Matt Cassel's career stats for the Trojans: 20 of 33 for 192 yards with 0 touchdowns. So how did this guy get drafted over guys like Jason White and Timmy Chang? Well if you look beyond the stats Matt is a very smart guy, in 2003 he won the Howard Jones/Football Alumni Club Academic Awar, which is given to the underclassmen with the highest GPA. Impressed? Sure he's smart but can he do anything on the field? Still the New England Patriots took a chance on him and brought him in at QB a long with of course Tom Brady, then veteran Doug Flutie and big dissapointment and NFL Europe god Rohan Davey. In the begining of traning camp Cassel showed off his baseball arm (he played baseball for USC as a Senior) impressing everybody except for Bill Belechick, but really who ever impresses the big man? Coach Belechick said "He still has a lot of thing to work on, he needs work to make this team." A week from that statement the Patriots cut Rohan Davey and then had there QB position set with three. The preseason then came rolling along, Cassel played a lot in Augest and showed some flashes of both the good and bad. First the good, Once again he showcased his strong arm connecting with WR's Jason Anderson and Brandon "Bam" Childress for most of the preseason and also showed his leadership. The bad, like any rookie he'll make his mistakes. A lot of careless throws and proved to be out of shape in the two minute drill, in which he was seen bending over gasping for air, but he led the Patriots to a touchdown. Fast forward to today's game against the Miami Dolphins. Tom Brady played all but 8 minutes and then it was Cassel's turn. For the game he went 11 for 20, 168 yards and 2 touchdowns. Oh yeah and this was against the starters for the Miami Dolphins, not bad for a 7th round rookie and didn't even start in college. I'm not saying he's the next Tom Brady or Peyton Manning but he's sure a good story.
Cassel is a good backup quarterback and looked impressive in his first NFL playing time, but ill wait to see him when teams are actually gameplanning to stop Matt Cassel instead of gameplanning around Tom Brady before I actually think of him as having the potential to be something special.
Nice article. I think that Matt Cassel is also a great story and will become Tom Brady's perfect Backup QB.
