- Even if the Chiefs are convinced that Cassel is their franchise quarterback (an assertion that I would disagree with), why not wait a year before splurging that kind of money on him? Make him prove that he's not a one year wonder and that he's not just a product of the patriots system. There are still many question marks about Cassel's game, so why not let Cassel spend another year proving his critics wrong before you break the bank?
- Cassel is not that much better than Tyler Thigpen, and I'm not even convinced that Cassel is better at all. Both of them are primarily shotgun quarterbacks who prefer to throw from spread formations. Most people point to Cassel's superior statistics, but consider the circumstances: First of all, Cassel played in 16 games, Thigpen played only 11. Both of them were starting for the first time, and if you compare Thigpen's 11 games to Cassel's first 11 games, there isn't that much difference. Those last five games were when Cassel finally figured it out (and by this I mean he became an average quarterback) and bolstered his stats, and Thigpen's stats would've been comparable if he had played a full season. Also, Cassel played with much more talent around him. Cassel had a terrific offensive line and a couple above average running backs. Thigpen had a horrible offensive line and a malcontent running back (Larry Johnson) who was going out of his way to stuff his own stats and make life miserable for everyone else. Cassel was throwing to Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Jabar Gaffney, and Benjamin Watson. Thigpen threw to Tony Gonzalez (who's still a terrific player, but its never a good sign when your best receiving threat is in his mid-30's), Dwayne Bowe (a terrific number 2 receiver but by no means a gamebreaker), and a bunch of spare parts. Cassel got to play at USC, which is known for producing good quarterbacks. Thigpen played at Coastal Carolina, which has probably produced so few NFL players (let alone quarterbacks) that you could count 'em all on Bart Simpson's left hand. Before starting, Cassel had the privelege of spending three years learning from Tom Brady and Bill Belicheck. Cassel only had one season under his belt before he got to start, and in that one season he learned from Brodie Croyle and Herm Edwards. Big difference. Yet considering all the advantages that Cassel had, he produced similar numbers to Thigpen. Additionally, Thigpen has a much stronger arm than Cassel, is way more mobile and athletic, and always appeared much more poised and in control than Cassel. I'm not saying that Thigpen is some sort of second coming of Otto Graham, but considering the circumstances, is Cassel really better than Thigpen? And was he really worth that second round pick that got shipped to the patriots?
- As I mentioned before, even if Cassel pans out, there is no way he will be worth what he will be being paid. Cassel is not in that elite class of quarterbacks like Brady, Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, and he has very limited upside, so why should he paid like a franchise quarterback?
On a related note, I think it bears noting that Scott Pioli and the Chiefs new front office have screwed up a lot recently. First they hired Todd Haley as head coach. So what if Haley completely fucked up Matt Leinart's development and took 2 and a half years to figure out that it's usually a pretty good idea to just throw a bunch of jump balls to Larry Fitzgerald? Didn't you notice him get in that shouting match with Anquan Boldin? That had head coach written all over it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Note to self: If I ever want to get a head coaching gig, all I need to do is make a video of me yelling at a wideout and send it to all the GM's in the league!
Next the Chiefs decided that they were going to switch to a 3-4 defense at any cost. Last year the Chiefs had shitty players who fit the scheme, and the result was a pretty pathetic defensive effort. What do you think is going to happen now that they have shitty players who don't fit the scheme? Didn't anybody nottice how badly this worked out when Eric Mangini tried it out with the Jets? Now 90% of the KC's defensive players are completely useless, including Glen Dorsey, Derrick Johnson, and Tamba Hali, and Brandon Flowers (only their 4 best players and the only guys on their defense that could ever start for anyone else). If the Chiefs had kept the 4-3, then they could have taken Aaron Curry with the 3rd pick. Curry was the consensus best defensive player in the draft and quite possibly the best player available. Instead, because it's so hard to find defensive ends for this scheme, the Chiefs had to spend the 3rd overall pick on Tyson Jackson, a guy with mid to late first round talent who carried way less value than Curry. (Of course, Curry probably could've filled in at middle linebacker, so not surprisingly you could still argue that Pioli screwed up the pick no matter how you look at it.)
Based on Pioli's recent moves, I have to wonder how much of a role he really played in New England's success and how much of it was Belicheck making everyone around him look good. I have a theory that Bill Belicheck hires stupid assistants, makes the team do really well, then heaps tons of credit on his assistants until other teams hire his dumb minions. That way, Belicheck can populate the NFL with idiotic head coaches who provide easy wins. It's kind of like basketball teams that give a guy the ball on every play so that they can pad the guy's stats and artificially inflate his trade value. Come one, Belicheck is definitely smart enough to make his assistants look 1000000000000 times better than they are, and he is definitely evil enough go out of his way to screw over other NFL teams by planting his moronic androids into other teams. Just look at some of the guys on his coaching tree: Charlie Weiss (won with Ty Willingham's players, then proceded to kill Notre Dame football), Romeo Crennel (great defensive coordinator, and unlike the other guys on the list he is not a jerk, but like everyone else he's a terrible head coach), Kirk Ferentz (still living off that rep that he built five years ago), Eric Mangini (first class douchebag, 8th class head coach), Scott Pioli (Ok so he's not a head coach, but like everyone else he sure does appear clueless. See above), and Josh McDaniels (I think he deserves a separate post. Let's just say that if I were Pat Bowlen I would be willing to crawl on my knees to Mike Shannahan, Jon Gruden, or Bill Cowher's house and clean their toilets if I could get one of them to come in and save me from the horror that is the Josh McDaniels experience). I have a hard time believing that these guys were at one time smart football people who simply lost all their intelligence once they left Bellicheck. No, I bet they were stupid to begin with, and Bellicheck, Brady, Tedi Bruschi, Richard Seymour, Troy Brown, and Mike Vrabel all simply did a spectacular job of making these guys look way smarter than they really are. But I'm not criticizing Bellicheck: It's a testament to his genius that he's actually able to get NFL teams to hire these morons, who do nothing but provide him with free victories and allow him to rip to get good players and draft picks on the cheap.
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