What did you see in Matt Cassel, with him having not played in college, that led you to believe he could do the things he’s doing now, or has it surprised you as well?“We drafted him in the seventh round, so we had enough good feeling about him to draft him. But I would say the things that we saw we’re No. 1 his workouts showed a lot of talent in throwing the ball, his accuracy, technique, mechanics and athleticism. He’s got a good arm.
“Of course it was hard to evaluate him on film, but from talking to Pete Carroll and coaches out at Southern Cal, of course they’ve had (Carson) Palmer and Matt (Lineart), and Pete’s been around a lot of pro quarterbacks and certainly knows what it takes to play in the National Football League. He had a lot of great things to say about him, and how competitive it was between Cassel and Lineart, in particular the last year. And they’ve even they thought it was not that big of a gap between Carson Palmer and Cassel.
“So, those things were all positive. And then as we got more interested in Matt we spent more time with him, just one-on-one getting to know him and giving him information and then coming back and kind of testing him on it or following up on it and seeing how much he retained and what thoughts he had and so forth. Our quarterbacks coach Josh McDaniels did that, and by the end of that process felt really good about his ability to learn and understand concepts and his overall understanding of the passing game and protections and all of those kinds of things that we do. That’s kind of how the whole process worked.”
