Yesterday we had a Q&A about Cassel’s time in Minnesota, so, it would only be fair to see what was up with his time in KC. We have Mike Norris who covers the Chiefs from Football.com to dish the dirt on Matt Cassel.
1) Tell me the pros and cons to Cassel’s game in KC?
Bill’s fans have been tormented enough since the glory days of the mid-90s, but there aren’t a whole lot of pros to Cassel’s game at this point. This isn’t to say he isn’t capable of having a decent season.
But the numbers tell the story. He’s thrown 96 touchdowns and 70 INTs in three full seasons, and bits and pieces of four others. That 1.37 TD-INT ratio is not awful, as it ranks 35th all-time among qualifiers. But if you take out his 2010 season in KC, and his 2008 one in New England, it becomes .92. Let’s not act like those two years didn’t happen, but one was in the greatest QB system in the modern era, and the other was an outlier of a season with the Chiefs.
He’s always been a bit of an enigma considering he threw just 32 passes in college, then played in New England and was mentored by Tom Brady. He then had a very up and down career in Kansas City.
In a nutshell though his pros would be: good game manager, doesn’t make a ton of poor decisions, and, believe it or not, is a serviceable scrambler. In his three full seasons, he averaged 195 yards per season. John Elway, the NFL’s seventh-leading QB rusher of all time, averaged 212.
His cons on the other hand include: staying on the field the entire season (in 7 years, he has averaged 10 starts per season due to injury and poor play), throwing deep (only averages a paltry 6.6 YPA), and his age (33 at the start of the season) isn’t doing him any favors.
The fact is, he has been a completely average QB at best in the NFL — which isn’t awful for a guy who never started in college. But his career W-L record is 33-38 and he has completed just 59 percent of his passes. That would have ranked him 29th in the NFL last year.
2) What are the types of throws Cassel excels or suffers making?
All of them.
No, not really. But he certainly is not the league’s best deep ball threat. His career YPA average was ahead of Blake Bortles and David Carr last year — and that includes throwing to Randy Moss one season.In four years in Kansas City he completed only 57.3 percent of his passes. In fairness, outside of Moss for one year and Dwayne Bowe in KC, he wasn’t exactly throwing to Pro Bowl pass catchers. That doesn’t completely hide the fact though that he is a below average passer.
3) His 2010 season looks really good on paper, but his yards are pretty pedestrian, why was that?
It’s for the same reason Alex Smith doesn’t throw for a ton of yards — his receiving options were limited. While we’ve established Cassel isn’t a superior down-field passer, he certainly is better than Smith and took more chances. He did have Bowe and went deep to him often, resulting in a 16.1 YPC for Bowe. However, when not throwing Bowe’s way, his YPC were just above 10.
He completed a pass to his RB Jamaal Charles once out of every 10 attempts.His second- and third leading “receivers” were Charles and tight end Tony Moeaki, respectively. The second-leading WR behind Bowe was Chris Chambers, who caught all of 22 passes. And it’s not like the offensive line was horrific. He was sacked 1.7 times per game in the 15 he played — by far his best ratio with the Chiefs. Not great, but Smith and Chase Daniel were sacked 3.1 times per game last year in Kansas City.
4) Where does he like going with the football in terms of his throws? WRs, TEs, RBs?
At least while in Kansas City, it was a bit of a mix. He obviously used Bowe as much as he could, as the WR caught 259 passes in his four years with KC (although Cassel did not throw all of them). However, during the four years his second and third ranked pass catchers rotated positions.
2009 — (1) WR (2) RB (3) WR
2010 — (1) WR (2) TE (3) RB
2011 — (1) WR (2) WR (3)SB
2012 — (1) WR (2) SB (3) RB
For the most part a QB is going to a WR first (unless you are Smith), and he did that because he had Bowe during his prime. But he used Dexter McCluster as a slot back often, and Charles when he was healthy. He did not utilize his tight ends as much, but he didn’t have a Travis Kelce or Tony Gonzalez like other Kansas City QBs have. Instead he was throwing to Leonard Pope, Moeaki, and a host of other back up TEs.
5) What happened to him after that decent 2010 season, why did he seem to go down the tubes?
Well, it’s more like who was that QB for the Chiefs in 2010, and what did he do with Matt Cassel? It’s not like the genius of Bill Belichick rubbed off on him from his time in New England. This was his second year in Kansas City, after throwing 16 TDs and as many interceptions in 2009 with the Chiefs.
There were however a few things to point to in 2010 that helped him have a 27-TD, 7-INT season. The first is Bowe. He actually played liked he cared that season, and it showed. He had career-highs in yards (1,162), TDs (16), YPC (16.1) and his 72 receptions are the second-best of his career. Nothing in Cassel’s game would lead you to believe he made Bowe better. Bowe has 455 catches and more than 7,000 yards in his career — he was hitting his prime in ’10 and it benefited Cassel.
Cassel, like Alex Smith does today, used Charles in ’10 a lot as well. The Pro Bowl running back had what was at the time his career high in catches with 45, and hauled in three TDs. The next year Charles tore his ACL in the second game, and while Bowe still had a good year, Cassell lost a great pass-catching RB. He then suffered through two injury plagued years before being released.
6) I noticed he took some sacks in KC, was that because of the OL or just Cassel takes a lot of hits?
Offensive line.
As mentioned before, Cassel is a decent scrambler and the Chiefs’ OL has just not been the same since Will Shields and Willie Roaf retired in the mid 2000s. It’s not like Cassel is Michael Vick when it comes to eluding pass rushers, but to put the blame on him would be unfair. In his 43 games played outside of Kansas City he was sacked at a rate of 1.69 times per game. In KC, it was a horrific 2.27.
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