Cassel signs deal - 6 Yrs $63MM

Fooleeze

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4327067

Chiefs lock up CasselComment Email Print Share By John Clayton

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Matt Cassel, a career backup in college and in the pros, parlayed a great 2008 season into a lucrative franchise tag. Now, he's locked himself into a deal to be the long-term quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Cassel

Cassel and the Chiefs worked out a six-year deal that will pay him in excess of $10 million a season, according to a source. The contract will keep Cassel with the Chiefs until 2014.

The deal is for $63 million, with $28 million guaranteed, according to a source. He's going to make $40.5 million in the first three years of his contract.

Cassel was designated as the New England Patriots' franchise player in February and signed a one-year deal that paid him $14.561 million. He was then traded to the Chiefs along with linebacker Mike Vrabel for a second-round draft choice.

The Kansas City Star first reported that Cassel had signed with the Chiefs.

Although Wednesday is the deadline for franchise players to get long-term deals, Cassel technically doesn't apply because he was traded and the team that franchised him no longer holds his rights. Still, the deadline and the start of training camp in two weeks provided both sides with incentive to lock up a long-term relationship.

Cassel replaced an injured Tom Brady in the first week of the 2008 season and threw for 3,693 yards and 21 touchdowns.

Former Patriots GM Scott Pioli, who was responsible for drafting Cassel in the seventh round in 2005, went to the Chiefs during the offseason. One of his first priorities was finding a quarterback and Cassel was his top choice.

Cassel is believed to be the only quarterback in NFL history to start an NFL game without starting a game in college. Cassel was a backup at USC.

Dan in Florida

Sure...NOW Cribbs will DEMAND more money! [sarcasm]

? AdaM

@dan-in-florida said:
Sure...NOW Cribbs will DEMAND more money! [sarcasm]

What a huge mistake for KC, they're betting their entire franchise on a virtually unknown. Lets see how good Cassel looks behind THIS line...

? Aloysius

AdaM said:
What a huge mistake for KC, they're betting their entire franchise on a virtually unknown. Lets see how good Cassel looks behind THIS line...

Not sure I see it that way. Sure, the contract numbers are pretty huge, but Mark Sanchez got the same amount of guaranteed money, and he only started one year on the college level.

And I don't think it's fair to say that Cassel's a virtual unknown. When the Pats drafted Kevin O'Connell in the 3rd round of the '08 draft, a source told Chris Mortensen that the team felt compelled to draft a QB because they expected Cassel would leave for a starting job elsewhere. It seems like people within the organization knew for some time that Cassel had starting potential.

The more problematic move was trading Tony Gonzalez. You have to give your young QB reliable weapons. And Gonzalez's replacement, Brad Cottam, struggled with drops during OTA's and minicamp.

Gips

Thats all i can say is....HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Vegasdogg

What an awesome story so for regarding Cassel - doesn't start a lick in college and gets $10M per year. Says quite a bit about New England. We can't even find a consistent starter in 10+ years and these guys had 1 on the bench. LOL.

daddybull1

Could he be a product of the system (Bledsoe, Brady, Cassell) or is he that good????? Similiar to the Bronco system turning out running backs.....

Some GM's leave me scratching my head.... With his background and short history seems to me he could have been signed for much less.... What bargaining chip did he have??????

peace

T.Dawg

? Aloysius

@daddybull1 said:
Could he be a product of the system (Bledsoe, Brady, Cassell) or is he that good????? Similiar to the Bronco system turning out running backs.....

During his time with Belichick & Weis, Drew Bledsoe amassed a 5-13 record and a 77.1 passer rating (same as his career QBR). Apparently, the system didn't do much to improve his performance.

Some GM's leave me scratching my head.... With his background and short history seems to me he could have been signed for much less.... What bargaining chip did he have??????

Matt Williamson's got a good writeup on the subject:

Cassel's deal gives Chiefs long-term answer at QB

dencyguy

Incidentally, Matt Cassel is Spanish for Rob Johnson, which in turn is French for Scott Mitchell.

Dennis

Actually, that's not entirely fair, since you'd have to tie Cassel and Johnson together to equal the landmass of Mitchell.

? Aloysius

An anonymous front office guy talked to Pro Football Weekly earlier this year about Cassel/Sanchez:

PFW said:
"You can say Mark Sanchez could not even beat out Josh Booty, but if you asked Pete Carroll now, I think he would admit he probably made a mistake. People forget how close the competition was between Booty, Matt Leinart and Matt Cassel the year after Carson Palmer left. It was neck-to-neck-to-neck. Cassel came close to being the starter, but Leinart was the most mistake-free - he knew where to go with the ball and when to get rid of it. That's why he won the job. Cassel easily could have been the Heisman Trophy winner. If you look at it in retrospect, who has been the best pro? I'd say it's not even close - it's Cassel - and how many snaps did he take in college? Too many people get caught up in who the starter is, but college coaches have a lot of tough (personnel) decisions to make, too, and they don't always get them right."

I think that's a pretty good point.

AZBrowns

John David Booty was also not too shabby of a talent himself, which is part of the reason Sanchez could never beat him out.

As for Cassell, he had a good year, but I don't see him doing as well in KC. He doesn't have near the amount of weapons nor the line in KC and while he had a very good year in New England, not many QB's would fail with those weapons surrounding him.

As for the Bledsoe comparison... not really the same thing. Bledsoe's Patriots' teams had talent, but not near the talent they have today.

BrownsFan17

Aloysius said:
During his time with Belichick & Weis, Drew Bledsoe amassed a 5-13 record and a 77.1 passer rating (same as his career QBR). Apparently, the system didn't do much to improve his performance.

I think that Bledsoe wasn't compatible with their system...whether that was by choice or not....I am unsure.

ITHIKA

AdaM said:
What a huge mistake for KC, they're betting their entire franchise on a virtually unknown. Lets see how good Cassel looks behind THIS line...

Couldn't agree with you more. Lets see how good he looks without throwing to Randy Moss! We know what that did for Daunte Culpepper . I thought Poili was smarter than that. Its looking more and more like the right decision was made about our HC and GM after watching the debacle in Denver and now this.

Pumpkin Eater

Aloysius said:
During his time with Belichick & Weis, Drew Bledsoe amassed a 5-13 record and a 77.1 passer rating (same as his career QBR). Apparently, the system didn't do much to improve his performance.
Matt Williamson's got a good writeup on the subject:

Cassel's deal gives Chiefs long-term answer at QB

What was Tom Brady's rating his first year? As I recall it wasn't good, the team just won.

? Aloysius

@azbrowns said:
As for the Bledsoe comparison... not really the same thing. Bledsoe's Patriots' teams had talent, but not near the talent they have today.

That goes without saying. My point was that Bledsoe wasn't very successful with the same personnel Brady won SB's with, so saying "it's just like Denver" devalues what Brady brought to that offense. He made the system work, not the other way around.

@ithika said:
Lets see how good he looks without throwing to Randy Moss! We know what that did for Daunte Culpepper

Culpepper was a lot more reliant on Moss, who actually had a "down" year playing with Cassel.

In Minnesota, Moss accounted for 27.6% of Culpepper's completions and 34.5% of his yardage. Last year, Moss only accounted for 20.2% of Cassel's completions and 25.9% of his yardage. Cassel likes to spread it around a lot more than Daunte every has, which makes him a more consistent, harder to shut down QB.

? Aloysius

Agreed, though I think Quinn's going to have to do a better job of hitting his receivers in stride. If there's one thing to criticize about Quinn's very good first start, it's that he made his receivers work too hard: Winslow was forced to make a couple shoestring catches, and Heiden & Steptoe struggled to catch stuff thrown behind them.

That's the biggest concern I have about BQ's game.

? Aloysius

@brownsfan17 said:
I think that Bledsoe wasn't compatible with their system

Could be, though he never really found a system that made him look like more than an average starting QB. He started out strong in both Buffalo and Dallas, then quickly collapsed.

Riffer X

Aloysius said:
Agreed, though I think Quinn's going to have to do a better job of hitting his receivers in stride. If there's one thing to criticize about Quinn's very good first start, it's that he made his receivers work too hard: Winslow was forced to make a couple shoestring catches, and Heiden & Steptoe struggled to catch stuff thrown behind them.
That's the biggest concern I have about BQ's game.

That's a good point, but no matter how much improvement he needs to have he can't be worse than DA in this aspect. I also believe that this is one of those things that gets ironed out with a few starts under one's belt and a comfort zone. Comes with knowing you're the starter, plenty of reps with the ones and all that other good stuff like prep time.

Sure would have been nice if this kid already had the training wheels off by now. But hell, three games should be plenty to judge him right?

I want to see his deep ball, that and total accuracy are my two biggest question marks. All I ever hear about DA is the guy has a great deep ball and there are numerous examples like in the Skins game where he missed deep, and sometimes by being way short. Good deep throwers don't overthrow either, and a great example was Kosar. I used to bring this up all the time, but how many opportunities does an NFL QB get to actually air it out 70 yards outside of a Hail Mary?

Consistency and accuracy is the key, although a lively arm is a huge bonus. Quinn has plenty of arm. He can also throw off the run which DA flat out can't (BTW so could Frye), so that right there opens up the offense for so many other play call opportunities.

Has anybody heard if our QB's are going to have more audible options this year? I sure would like to think so.

Flugel

AdaM said:
What a huge mistake for KC, they're betting their entire franchise on a virtually unknown. Lets see how good Cassel looks behind THIS line...

I hear ya. THIS time he won't have Randy Moss or Wes Welker. I didn't catch alot of NE games but one of the ones I caught late in the season - Cassel ran the Qb draw on just about 3rd down. Moss commanded alot of attention downfield and Welker took alot of people with him underneathe so all the QB had to do was run to move the chains. Nothing wrong with taking what the D gives you but when you have KC's personnel - the opponent doesn't give you what it gives NE. Besides, last time I checked - Tyler Thigpen was REALLY good at scrambling and he appeared to be improving considerably at QB.

Here's a mini-comparison of the 2 young QBs:

Cassel: 21 TD passes 11 INTs

Thigpen: 18 TD passes 12 INTs

- Tom F.

Flugel

@shepwrite said:
So strange that we all get polarized into hyperbole, but I'm in a wait and see mode on Quinn, too. He has a ton of qualities that make him very promising as a prospect, but there are a couple issues that need to be ironed out. The hope is that's what happens with sustained starting experience.
I'm always willing to give someone another chance, but I don't get a clear vision of Anderson as a long-term successful starter in this league.

And what's nice about that is Anderson has had starts in each of the last 3 seasons to prove he's had more than a 2nd chance to show sustained improvement. The fact is that he's regressed into 4 INT performances the week of Christmas against a 4 win TB team and again 365 days later vrs a bad Cincy team. Then he led us to a couple 10-6 losses in 08 on both sides of the game we're never allowed to forget vrs the NY SLEEPING Giants.

I want to be able to face an AFC opponent that is projecting MORE than 8 wins and feel like I SHOULD be confident we have the correct leader to win that game. In the land of what have you done lately - ANY game your defense gives up only 10 points SHOULD BE a Utopian give-me for the QB if he's a legit starter. Sorry folks but the nice-nice about DA went out the window when he played Santa Claus to the Indy D for the game winning points on a day there offense wasn't able to score 1 single TD. Who really needs an oncore?

You don't draft a QB in round 1 to be saying in season #3: "I don't KNOW what this QB has" if you have a competant organization. We've done this backwards. It's prolly why DA was never embraced the way Sipe was. Sipe won and progressed; BUT that wasn't until after Phipps failed, failed, failed again and then reminded people he failed multiple times. We dotted i's, crossed t's and lost games. Point was - there came a time to unload Phipps without ever needing to contemplate "what if he REALLY has it?" Then again, Sipe was emerging as a conference MVP and the Browns were making post seasons so nobody really worried.

- Tom F.