Up until this last loss, I was pretty confident the playoffs were very reachable, and then anything can happen from there. Now I'd say 50-50 on the playoffs seems more reasonable.
That's because you weren't being realistic. Some of us realized a long time ago that Brady covered up a lot of little nagging faults by his very existence here. And the better weapons and protection you got him the greater your margin for error elsewhere would be. They got him some more elite weapons in Moss and Welker, but they failed to improve the protection significantly which had the added effect of impacting a running game. But hey, who needed one in 2007...although by early 2008 there were hints even Brady still might.
So now you subtract Brady from the equation and add just about any other QB on the planet (including some other elite ones absent familiarity with this system) and what do you reasonably expect to net? Matt Cassel isn't making this team worse, he's simply not Tom Brady nor is anyone else and that is what it takes to cover for this team when they are playing well, let alone when they are not. The best you can hope for is veterans stepping up around a guy who won't hurt you. But they haven't yet mastered doing that with any consistency.
Maybe they yet will, or maybe they can't or won't. That is the intrigue for this season. Anyone who can't grasp or accept that might as well pack it in. Unloading venom on Matt accomplishes nothing. He's just doing his job as best he can. O'Connell or Culpepper (LOL) wouldn't alter the equation substantially unless they made it worse.
Good piece by Chris Gasper in today's globe:
"But if there is one criticism of Cassel so far, it's that he's not able to dictate to defenses what he wants to do. He's resigned to taking what they give him, and if they want to take away the deep ball at times, he doesn't have the Brady-like precision to put the team in the end zone consistently.
But Chargers coach Norv Turner, who coached Troy Aikman in Dallas, said criticism of Cassel isn't on target.
"I thought he did a lot of good things," said Turner. "Their offense is based on that quarterback making great decisions throughout an entire football game. They have a lot of weapons to get to and they spread you out. You have to make calls for protection. You have to make good decisions on the move.
"I think Matt Cassel played outstanding a week ago in San Francisco. He made a lot of good plays against us. When you've got a young guy, you should be able to create some negative plays and we were able to do that."
In gains, they've lost ground - The Boston Globe