As I said previously, the two options were writing off the season or being cautiously optimistic. What have you seen so far, besides maybe the Jets game where you can honestly say one can be cautiously optimistic. Put me in the camp of "hope for the best". Unfortunately, that wasnt one of the options.
If there wasn't an option you liked, you had a very simple option of not casting a vote.
Now, to your point on the defensive plays. There is no question that the defense played poorly in both games. The run defense was not good against Miami and the pass defense was bad against SD. We all saw that. But where is the offense to keep things close? Its not there. Where are the sustained drives to give the defense fresh or to keep the other team's offense off the field? How about the chances we have had in the red zone? Or turning point plays like underthrowing Moss on that deep ball last game?
I keep getting confused. What part of "total team failure" are you anti-Cassel people so unwilling to understand? Are you all just constitutionally incapable of grasping the notion that the game was lost because of both the offense AND the defense stinking out the joint? Are you so gung ho to put forth the ever-so-daring notion that the backup quarterback to the greatest quarterback of all time is not as good as that G.O.A.T. quarterback that you have to throw away any pretense of reason in order to try making a point nobody is arguing against?
And you still didn't answer my question. did you not expect more out of Cassel, given his years in the system?
No, not really. Why would I have?
1.) As of today, there's still no substitute for actual game experience. Practice, book study, scrimmages and "exhibitions" are simply not the same. Cassel's success track has pretty much mirrored Brady's over the first few starts of their careers. While that doesn't mean that Cassel will be the next Brady, it does show that there's a learning curve involved.
2.) Matt Cassel is the BACKUP, and was not expected to have to play 16 games for the New England Patriots. He's Billy Joe Tolliver (career rating 67.7)/Sage Rosenfels (career rating 82.2)/Scott Zolak (career rating 64.8)/Chris Redman (career rating 79.5) etc..., and that's all he's supposed to be. If playing time allows him to develop into something more than that, it's just a bonus.
3.) I expect hugely inconsistent games out of Cassel. I expect that some games he'll look quite good, and I expect that some games he'll look awful, and I expect that we'll see both the decent and the awful in the same games fairly frequently, at least until the game slows down for him. That's what happens to rookies and that's what happens to backups.
