What could have been a great opportunity has turned into a disaster for would-be Patriots backup quarterback Matt Cassel.
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\nAnother subpar performance on Thursday night against the New York Giants may have been the end\u00a0for Cassel. Despite playing with the first offense, for yet another game Cassel failed to get his team into the endzone, and it took just two series for head coach Bill Belichick to pull the plug.\u00a0\u00a0
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\nAs a fan it\u2019s been frustrating to watch.\u00a0 Cassel has looked indecisive, confused, and despite having Randy Moss and Wes Welker at his disposal (albeit not tonight with Welker out with an injury) the Patriots have managed all of just two field goals with Cassel under center through four preseason games.
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\nHad Cassel played with the second or third team I would have given him the benefit of the doubt, but he\u2019s been given the opportunity to replace the injured quarterback Tom Brady in what you would have thought was the ideal situation.\u00a0 In theory, for Cassel there wasn\u2019t any pressure.\u00a0 He\u2019s had the chance to play with the first offense, with no real need to worry about winning since these games don\u2019t even count.\u00a0 He should have gone out there without any fear and just \u201clet it fly\u201d.\u00a0 Instead he\u2019s looked like a guy who has spent all of his time worrying about making a mistake, and unfortunately that\u2019s not a mindset that works in professional football.
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\nCassel\u2019s habit of making sure his guy is open and then locking onto him has really been his biggest problem.\u00a0 The worst part is that not only has this caused incompletions, it\u2019s caused him to throw interceptions and has caused his receivers to get nailed after giving the defensive backs another second to come in and make the hit.\u00a0 Instead of dropping back, planting and letting it go, he’s dropped back, planted, then hopped around waiting that extra second to let it go.\u00a0 His mannerisms for a while now have reminded me of former quarterback Drew Bledsoe, but tonight was the first time I really saw their similarities on the football field.
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\nNeedless to say I have a feeling he\u2019ll be returning to Foxboro only to find he\u2019s going to have to clean out his locker.\u00a0 Belichick has given him every opportunity to show what he could do, but apparently after the second series tonight he had seen enough, and Cassel came off the field for what could be his final time in a Patriots uniform.
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\nIt\u2019s really too bad because had he excelled during this preseason he could have given another team a reason to make a run at giving him a shot at a future starting role.\u00a0 Instead it has just looked like he\u2019s taken a huge step backward, and should he get cut I don\u2019t even know at this point where he would end up.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see another team looking at his performance during the preseason and taking a chance on him, at least not as a starter.\u00a0
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\nMaybe he\u2019s a guy that is just taking longer than expected to develop.\u00a0 From what I can see it looks like Belichick may be ready to move on.
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\nSome people take advantage of an opportunity and become a household name.\u00a0 In New England we\u2019ve seen it first hand, and we\u2019ve seen that person lead this team to three Super Bowl victories.\u00a0 Unfortunately we\u2019ve now also seen what life could be like without him, and if you\u2019re a Patriots fan you can\u2019t be too confident of what the future would hold if \u201clife after Tom Brady\u201d came anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What could have been a great opportunity has turned into a disaster for would-be Patriots backup quarterback Matt Cassel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22616],"tags":[22617,61,44],"class_list":["post-36878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2008-patriots-preseason","tag-2008-patriots-preseason","tag-matt-cassel","tag-new-england-patriots"],"yoast_head":"\n