Amid the haze of the exhilarating win by the Jets over the Patriots last Thursday night was the stellar play of Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel, another game in a series of solid performances from a player the Patriots had faith in from the day they lost Tom Brady (remember the immediate cry from pundits for the Patriots to sign one of the veteran quarterbacks waiting for a call?). Now comes the discussion of Cassel and the future.
Cassel, as a seventh-round pick, negotiated a four-year deal in 2005. It had become common practice by then for many teams, Patriots included, to negotiate four-year contracts with all draft picks past the first round (2005 was the last year teams could negotiate five-year deals in the second round; that was reduced to four-year maximum lengths in the 2006 Collective Bargaining Agreement). Thus, Cassel’s contract runs out this year, completing the final year of his rookie deal.
There has been some debate since Thursday as to his worth, factoring in recent deals by Aaron Rodgers, Derek Anderson, David Garrard, Tony Romo and a certain deal to come for Jason Campbell. That, of course, assumes that Cassel hits the market for unrestricted free agency in March. Certainly, with the lack of quality young quarterbacks ever hitting the marketplace, he could negotiate that level of contract or higher at that time. Assuming his continued ascending performance in the next two months, however, I would expect that the Patriots would not let him reach unrestricted free agency.
Even with Tom Brady making eight figures, the Patriots would be wise to apply the Franchise Tag to Cassel, a tag price that will be determined in February — the amount was 10.7M in 2008, likely to be slightly above that in 2009. The Patriots are currently showing 101M of Cap charges for 2009 with an expected Cap of 123M, so they will have the room to use the tag.
The application of the Franchise Tag, although Cap heavy for the off season, would allow for the following: (1) retention of a quality quarterback while Brady continues his rehabilitation with the team monitoring his progress, (2) no cash outlay of funds until September, allowing cash, if not Cap flexibility, and (3) the ability to listen to trade offers and potentially consummate a trade that could bring players and/or draft picks to the Patriots (at which point a new deal would be made between Cassel and the trading team).
Assuming the Patriots and Cassel could not agree to a contract that would satisfy both parties, there is some real value in placing a tag on Cassel…………