Re: Serious offers for Cassell yet?
arrellbee said:
I would be fascinated to know what you see in the crystal ball and which ONE of those guys you would take instead of Cassel.
Holy smokes. What are you Cassels brother or something? No, at the time I didn't think Brady would be the God that he is now. None of us did. That was my point. Brady is a friggin hero, there are many people on this board, ie, seemingly you, who think that Cassel could likewise step in and be a hero. I think that's horribly, grossly unrealistic.
arrellbee said:
There is no way of knowing what results the Patriots might have if Cassell were to be the QB of the team.
Right, but am I not free to conjecture? Isn't that the point of this board? Obviously neither of us have anything better to do right now, so I'm going to feel free to put in my .02. Belichick might think that Cassel might step in and be average, but he also might realize that the Patriots with an average quarterback suddenly aren't Super Bowl contenders like they were when they had Tom Brady running the show. I'm not comfortable with ANY qb other than Brady at the helm in NE, and I guess I'll concede that I'm no more uncomfortable with Cassel as backup as anyone else. That's right, I have NO problems with Cassel being our backup.
arrellbee said:
The thing you seem to ignore completely is that there is an example right in front of your face in the person of Tom Brady that says you can't know what would happen.
Yeah, well there's also a million examples of QBs who were fine in preseason and sucked it up in the pros. Tom Brady is an EXCEPTION to the rule of 6th or 7th round picks turning into Legends. Belichick doesn't bank on exceptions.
Let me just make myself clear, b/c obviously I'm not doing that. I don't think Matt Cassel would suck like a Michael Bishop or a Rohan Davey. I do, however, feel that there are decent odds he wouldn't be anything better than an
average backup if given the chance to prove himself. I don't see any reason why you likewise have some "magical fancy crystal ball" that tells you he will be better than average.
Nor do I see any reason why this team needs anything more than an average backup, that is the entire point of my argument. Why do you think we traded Drew Bledsoe? We knew he would be a more than adequate backup - and that was exactly the point - he would be too adequate. Another team could use him as a starter. If some team out there has deluded itself like you have into thinking that Matt Cassel has shown anything worthy of being considered for a starting role, then yes, we should trade him, b/c to us, he is no more than an average backup.
To put it another way,
if the day before Mo Lewis offered up that hit on Drew Bledsoe, would you have traded Tom Brady for a 2nd rounder?? (the fact that people are actually throwing a #2 out there is crazytalk) Tom Brady is the reason why we think Cassel has any potential b/c of their similarities (similar looking tall white males who were backups in college and drafted late, etc., etc.).
To me, this whole Cassel worship is just another form of Belichick worship. It's "oh, Belichick can make anybody work" and it's probably all under this subconcious and faulty premise that "Belichick made Brady" and the same type of thinking that led to "Brady only excels in a certain system" type of crap. And it's all wrong.