Week 21 QB projections   •  KC Stats

QB Matt Cassel, Kansas City Chiefs

HT: 6-5, WT: 230, Born: 5-17-1982, College: USC, Drafted: Round 7

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Stats and Week 21 Projection

WK	OPP	RES	CMP	ATT	PYD	Y/A	PTD	INT	RSH	YD	Y/R	TD	FPT
SEASON TOTAL			160	269	1713	6.4	10	9	25	99	4.0	0	127

Week 21 Injury Status and Other News

No official injury reports have been released yet

[Fri Feb 3, 4:38 PM] Matt Cassel Chiefs head coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli emphasized Thursday, Feb. 2, the need to bring in competition for Matt Cassel at starting quarterback. "What happens in free agency remains to be seen," Crennel said. "I know competition makes everybody better, and we'll just have to see what kind of competition we're going to have at the quarterback position." Pioli added the team could re-sign impending free-agent Kyle Orton.

[Wed Feb 1, 5:53 PM] Matt Cassel and his wife helped alert a woman her house was on fire, and she escaped without injury or incident. Cassel's wife saw smoke and flames coming from the neighbor's chimney, and Cassel ran to this neighbor's house, pounded on the front door and started to circle the house until he saw the woman who lives there come outside.

Week 21 Matchup Info

The Kansas City Chiefs have a bye this week.

Game Summaries

Week 1 vs BUF - Checking twitter and online articles, Cassel is really getting thrown under the bus for this one, though much of the blame also seems to be focused on the loss of Charlie Weis. Cassel certainly wasn't very good in this game, but much of it was not his fault. One the opening kickoff, Dexter McCluster lost a fumble. Then again in the first half, Jamaal Charles lost a fumble as well. Throw in one rather ugly Cassel INT, and it was a disaster on offense for the entire team. Cassel was also was completely unable to even get the "garbage time points" that so many QB's rack up in the 2nd half of blowouts. The loss of Moeaki can't be blamed, as Cassel did hit his replacement Pope a few times. Much of the problem lied in the fact that the Chiefs just didn't get the ball much in the first half, and the game became a blowout quickly. As a result, the Chiefs had only 18 rushes, as opposed to 36 passes. Last year, they were the number 1 rushing team in the league, and Cassel really needs that threat of a running game to succeed. The Buffalo defensive line also manhandled KC up front, and had Cassel under heavy pressure much of the game. Cassel also threw a nice ball to Leonard Pope in the endzone early in the game, and Pope made a great catch, though he wasn't able to retain possession. That TD could have really helped the Chiefs as well. While Cassel is definitely not a star QB, he's not as bad as he looked today, or as bad as some are saying, and remains a solid backup QB in certain matchups.

Week 2 at DET - If you want a quick summary this writer says you need to find an alternate back up QB for your roster. However that said, the reality is Cassel was done a disservice by his teammates and also his head coach Todd Haley. The Chiefs opened with 6 straight runs on the 1st drive culminating with a field goal. The Chiefs racked up 110 yards rushing in the 1st half alone against the Lions when the game was still competitive. Once they established the run they started to throw the ball some but Cassel was hosed by his wide receivers on his 1st two interceptions. Bowe clearly let a ball slip through his hands and into the secondary. Urban was targeted and while the throw was not perfect, many wide receivers in the league make that catch. Cassel was delivering the ball where it needed to be but his receivers were not making plays. The stats prove this as outside of Dwayne Bowe the remaining receivers, tight ends, and running backs totaled up a paltry 32 yards in receiving which is awful. Cassel completed almost 66% of his passes but his receivers outside of Bowe cannot make plays. So the information you need to know is that Cassel probably is a low end QB2 or perhaps even a QB3 at this stage, but also in dynasty you might look at him as a potential buy low because things have to get better eventually. That could mean a coaching change, possibly opening up the playbook since they are likely to lose a lot of games, or just the fact that maybe his receivers will hang on to the ball more. This game was hard to gauge Cassel's performance because they didn't ask him to do a whole lot early and when they did his supporting cast let him down until the game was out of reach. His OLine ws decent at run blocking but he was under a lot of pressure from the Lions pass rush most of the day. Branden Albert also had to leave the game with an injury but the initial prognosis is he will be OK.

Week 3 at SD - It was a tale of two halves for Cassel, as just about everything went wrong in the first half and everything went right in the second. Well, almost everything. Early on, Kansas City could get almost nothing going. The Chargers weren't even really applying a ton of pressure; it's just that the Chiefs receivers couldn't get open and there was simply no rhythm or flow to the offense. It was all dink and dunk passes for limited yardage, and by the end of the first half the Chiefs had run 18 plays for a total of 34 yards. No play had gone for more than four yards, and the team did not pick up a single offensive first down. They finally picked up their initial first down two minutes into the third quarter and Cassel finally was able to direct a scoring drive. He made a perfect pass with nice touch to WR Dwayne Bowe down to the four yard line, placing it right over Bowe's shoulder and out of reach of the defender. Soon after, he again connected with Bowe for Kansas City's first score of the game. It was a fade pattern to the sideline in the end zone, and was a product of some superhuman footwork by Bowe to keep his feet inbounds. On the next possession, they controlled the ball for over nine minutes and ran a whopping 18 plays -- but Cassel went just 2-3 for nine yards. Even when faced with third down and long situations, coach Todd Haley elected to run the ball rather than let Cassel throw it (the situations were 3rd and 10, 3rd and 6, and 3rd and 11). When the Chiefs finally got the ball back near the middle of the fourth quarter, they trailed by two scores and needed a quick strike. Despite Haley's reluctance to trust him on the last possession, Cassel answered the call in driving the Chiefs 80 yards in three minutes, culminating with a short touchdown strike to TE Leonard Pope. The key plays on the drive were two perfect third down completions to Dwayne Bowe to keep the drive alive. And the big play to put them in scoring range was a perfectly-thrown deep ball to WR Steve Breaston down to the one yard line. Breaston rolled out of bounds as he caught it, just before he was able to get into the end zone. But Cassel found Pope on the very next play for the score. Due to some awful clock management by San Diego, the Chiefs had the ball with 1:26 left and a chance to tie or win the game. After finding Pope down the seam for a big gain, Cassel made by far his worst pass of the afternoon. He looked left to set up a screen pass, but didn't see San Diego S Eric Weddle buried in the seam. The ball was essentially thrown in Weddle's lap for the game-clinching interception. Cassel's stats will look decent and he did make several very nice passes, but on the whole he was ineffective. The Chargers really shot themselves in the foot on several occasions, helping Cassel's stat line look a whole lot better than it probably should have.

Week 4 vs MIN - The first half of this game looked much like the Cassel we've seen in 2011. Short dump offs were the norm with overthrown balls over the middle occasionally mixed in. The few times he threw across the middle, you could hear an audible gasp from the crowd, as the ball fluttered through the secondary. As it was, he was extremely fortunate to not have an interception in the first half and made two good throws. The first was a quick slant to Dwayne Bowe that was timed and thrown very well. The second was a post to Steve Breaston, Cassel's bravest and most impressive throw of the half. While he was occasionally under pressure, Cassel's main intention in the first half was not to lose the game and he didn't. After a three and out to start the second half, Cassel seemed to loosen up a little and led the team to two more field goals. He spread the ball around nicely between Bowe and Breaston during this period with Breaston saving him an interception on a ball in the end zone. Had the ball been thrown to Breaston's back shoulder it probably would have been a touchdown. The highlight of Cassel's day, and the difference in the game, came on the Chiefs' first drive in the second half. As Bowe ran wide open down the left sideline, Cassel threw a bomb in his direction. He put a little too much air under it and Bowe had to stop to catch the ball, but he was so open it didn't matter. Bowe then made a great play to get into the end zone and give Cassel his only touchdown of the day.

Week 5 at IND - As Todd Haley might say, Matt Cassel's arrow is pointing up. For the second consecutive week Cassel got stronger as the game went on and ended up matching a career high with 4 touchdown passes in a come from behind victory. The passes all came on different routes and throws but they all had one thing in common, his receivers making plays. The first, with 5:11 left in the 1st half, came on a 5 yard slant to Dwayne Bowe, with Bowe doing the other 36 yards worth of work after the catch. Still, without the timing and accuracy of Cassel's throw, Bowe never has a chance to make those moves. The second touchdown came at the end of the half after one of Cassel's most impressive drives of the season. He took the Chiefs 80 yards in 56 seconds, going 4-4 on the drive while hitting 3 different targets. The touchdown pass was thrown to Steve Breaston's back shoulder at the three yard line and he made an acrobatic dive into the end zone, just clipping the pylon with the ball. Cassel continued to show good timing on the short throws in the second half, but struggled throwing the ball downfield. Perhaps his most fortunate touchdown came at the end of the third quarter when he badly underthrew a fade route to Bowe in the corner who literally picked the ball off the defender's shoulder pad and somehow came to the ground with a juggling catch. The comeback was completed mostly on the ground in the 4th quarter, but Cassel hammered the final nail into the coffin by finding Breaston again for an 11 yard touchdown. The throw wasn't perfect, but Breaston was so poorly defended that it hardly mattered. In the end, it was a great day for Cassel made possible by his increasingly impressive pair of receivers.

Week 7 at OAK - Rarely has the term 'game manager' applied better than it did Sunday for Matt Cassel. All he had to do Sunday was not lose the game, and in that regard he was successful. In a strange twist, the Chiefs threw deep passes on their first three plays, all of them incompletions and only one particularly close. Everything Cassel was throwing early on was to the sideline and wide. Cassel completed his first pass on 3rd and 13 to Jon Baldwin for a first down. It was a timing route, and Cassel looked much more comfortable than he had on the deep ball. It was the third drive of the quarter where Cassel looked his best, going 6/6 and leading the Chiefs to a touchdown. He hit 4 different receivers and again focused mostly on the short passes. Dwayne Bowe was tackled at the one yard line or he would have had a TD pass. The only thing of note in the next 15 minutes of game time was Cassel's developing trust of Steve Breaston. He is not afraid to throw it into a tight spot, and Breaston has been rewarding that trust. Shortly before the half, Cassel made his best throw of the day, a 21 yard dart to Dwayne Bowe to give the Chiefs a chance at a Hail Mary. The Hail Mary was picked off, accounting for one of Cassel's two picks. Cassel threw just one pass on the Chiefs TD drive to start the second half, a 4 yard dump off to Leron McClain. The rest of the offense was on the ground or courtesy of Raiders' penalties on their way to another rushing TD and a 21-0 lead. With that Cassel's productivity nosedived as he finished the game 3/9 for 32 yards over the last quarter and a half of the game. His one significant play was a terrible decision into triple coverage and an equally bad throw that resulted in his 2nd pick of the game with 1:45 left in the 3rd quarter.

Week 8 vs SD - Cassel started the game off with way too much energy, overshooting Dwayne Bowe by a good six yards on an out to start the game but bounced back nicely with a couple of near perfect throws to Jon Baldwin and Dwayne Bowe to move the Chiefs into field goal range. Cassel and Bowe did not show the same impeccable timing they have recently, at least early on, as Cassel targeted him 4 times on the drive but only connected once. The Chiefs first TD drive wasn't much of a drive at all, just four plays and the last three involved Cassel. First he was pressured, escaped and ran for a 7 yard gain before jumping up to fire up the crowd. He then dumped off a pass to Leron McClain, he was a little slow getting McClain the ball which ended up resulting in a 15 yard penalty on San Diego for a hit against a defenseless receiver. On the very next play Cassel made the type of big time throw Chiefs fans have been begging for; a 39 yard touchdown to Baldwin. It would be more than a full quarter before Cassel completed another pass as the Chiefs seemed content to see how long their small lead would hold up. Cassel did fumble in the second quarter on a questionable play where his hand was hit as he was preparing to throw and was plagued by back-to-back drops from Bowe and Baldwin. At the end of the half, Cassel was able to connect with Steve Breaston for the first time to get the Chiefs into field goal range and pad their lead. The third quarter wasn't much better and included back-to-back drops from Baldwin, who tipped the second into a defender's hands for Cassel's first pick of the day. It was a good throw and terrible play by Baldwin. To illustrate just how ugly that period was, Cassel was a combined 3/10 for 36 yards and two turnovers during the middle two quarters. It is important to note that 4 of those 7 incompletions (and the interception) were a result of his receivers not catching very catchable balls. He would complete his next 5 passes before throwing his second interception at the end of regulation, a duck that was by far his worst pass of the day. On the game winning drive in overtime, Cassel made one good throw to a tightly covered Baldwin and spent the rest of the drive handing off and dumping balls in the flat for Dexter McCluster. Early in the game, Cassel looked more comfortable throwing the ball downfield across the middle than he has all year, and once again he did enough to get the Chiefs the win.

Week 9 vs MIA - - He was running for his life almost the entire game. He put together a solid 1st drive of the game where he was able to find Dwayne Bowe. He had a terrific strike on the opening drive to the back shoulder of Bowe as he took advantage of Sean Smith up the right sideline. The 2nd drive of the game he was pinned deep and tried to throw it deep to Breaston in double coverage. He also burned a timeout on a 3rd and long inside his 5 yard line on a play statistically you are never going to make so it would have been better had he just run a play up the middle and punted. He started limping around early in the 2nd quarter. He was set up 1st and 10 at the 50 yard line and then tried to throw deep to Bowe which was incomplete and then on 2nd and 3rd down he had to scramble because of pressure by Miami who was blitzing early and often be it a DB or LB. Drive stalled and KC was forced to punt. 3rd and 2 on the following drive and Matt Cassel was sacked, end of the drive. He rarely had time to set up and throw the ball. In the 1st half alone he was sacked 4 times, hurried 10 times, and knocked down another 4 times.

Week 10 vs DEN - As much attention as Tebow's 2/8 deserves, Cassel may have actually been worse throwing the ball. Cassel was completely uncomfortable in the pocket from the start and took big hits all day long. He completed 1 pass downfield in the first half, and that was a ten yard pass to Bowe who did a nice job to hang on. Even his short passes were off the mark, as Leonard Pope had to make a great effort to haul in his 6 yard pass. Even the short slant to Bowe, that has been his bread and butter, was well high. He did drive the Chiefs for a touchdown, but that was done mostly on the back of Jackie Battle and Dexter McCluster. The touchdown pass was created by a great placation fake from Cassel who then found a wide open Leron McClain in the end zone. On the next drive Cassel badly overthrew Dexter McCluster down the left side. Jon Baldwin helped him out to start the 4th quarter. First, he turned a 5 yard hitch into a 14 yard pick up, then he turned into a defender on a deep ball that Cassel again airmailed and knocked the ball away from the defender. He was injured on his last throw of the game and reportedly left the game with a cast on his hand.