This is a history of the Chief's starting QBs, and a statistical ranking of their performances with the team. I crunched the numbers myself.

Poll

In your opinion, Who is the best Chiefs QB of all time?

• Dawson
• Deberg
• Kenney
• Montana
• Green
• Other

  45 votes | Results

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Well the academic semester is over so I can get back to the important things, like blogging about the Chiefs.

 

I have been, for quite sometime, a Matt Cassel proponent. I have now concluded that continuing to sing his praises would make me a Matt Cassel apologist.

My initial impression of Cassel was that he was an accurate, mobile passer. He doesn't have arm strength the NFL likes but that's easy to overcome if you're a good decision maker. Jamarcus Russel has a mega arm, but he's an awful QB. Rich Gannon had sub-par arm strength but found his way to a superbowl. That criticism aside, I've observed traits in him that cause me to doubt that he can be a legit NFL QB.

First, his decision making is not what it should be. This is very evident by his amount of sacks taken, and also his low INT rate. A low INT rate sound like an odd indicator for bad decision making, but I will explain. Cassel is less of a bad decision maker than he is a NON decision maker. He hold on to the ball to long and ends up getting sacked or runing a lot because he throws very safe passes. He's not willing to put the ball in a tight spot which every QB has to do sometimes. When the obvious completion is not there, he gets sacked. It it is there, he throws the pass for a completion or a drop. Cassel doesn't throw few INTs because he's accurate, it's because he only thows the obvious completions. His high completion % in NE was due to conservatism, not great accuracy.

 

Second, his fundamentals are just bad. Watch him throw and you will see a guy who is lunging his whole upper body forward as he releases. This is due to two things, I think. His arm strength is not that high, so he has to generate extra thrust on the ball by putting his weight into deep passes and fast passes. The other aspect is that Cassel is a pitcher. His throwing motion is completely that of a baseball pitcher. He lunges and releases low. Nearly all of his passes are line drives, which is bad for anything but a laser down the middle. Cassel is good a throwing straight down the middle, and that is why. His line drive passing gives the ball an awkward angle for downfield passes which contributed, IMO, to Bobby Wade's epic drop. I don't recall seeing him drop a pass into "the bucket" as most passers do. Good QBs have upright posture and high release. Watch how Manning and Brady stand when they are throwing, and that is what you will see. Brodie Croyle actually has very good passer posture as well, but he's obviosly no Manning.

Speaking of Croyle, that brings me to what to do if Cassel is indeed not the answer. I remember reading after we drafted him that Croyle had 1st round talent but dropped the the 3rd due to durability questions. We have watched Croyle fall flat(literally and figuratively) in games, but if the first half of that assesment of his talent is accurate, maybe he has developed some of that potential. I'm not saying Croyle > Cassle, i'm honesltly not sure who is better, but I'd guess the difference is not much either way. Do I think you could have put Croyle into the Pats offense and won 11 games? I do. I would not outright bench Cassel for Croyle, but if games get out of hand, I put him in and tell him that he has a chance to make Cassel's job less safe. Since I doubt Croyle would convince anyone he's the guy, you then bring in a guy in the offseason and lunch a battle for the starting nod. Go get a guy that isn't big on the radar, comes cheap, but has the tools to succeed. It had to toss a name out there that fits that bill, its Brian Brohm. He a smart player with good mechanics and a big arm. You may not know who he is, but he's alot like Matt Ryan.

 

There it it, I've done an about face on Cassel. I know he's got a bad line and WR's who drop like rain. That aside, i still think he would not be able to play consistantly at the pro level. I really, deperately hope I'm wrong. I would Love for the Chiefs to have a long term solution at QB on their hands, but I fear that they have again errored.

Simple question: Do you think the Chiefs make it to 500 this season? In my estimation- Chargers - W - Talented team that can't put it together. If we come out amped from last week and catch SD off guard from jump, we walk out with a win. Jaguars - L - Inconsistent team but they have thus far beaten the teams they were supposed to. The Chiefs are one of those teams. Hope for an off game on their part Raiders - W - Chiefs obliterate them. The fluke loss is avenged Steelers - L - Too complete of a team. This looks like the Giants game Chargers - L - The difference is slim and home field puts it in favor of SD. Broncos - W - A much better team on paper than they really are. They fall to a Chiefs team hungry to show them up Bills - W - Lost to the browns in a game similar to KC vs WAS. KC wins this one in another clunker of a game. Browns - W - Chiefs win comfortably coasting on momentum from previous weeks. Bengals - L - Just a better football team Broncos - L - Denver is no easy place to play, and we're not good enough to account for it. That puts us at 6-10 on the year by my count, so we fall short of 500. I think we could beat the Jags and the Bengals so if we break even that's the route.

Which chiefs (relative to the team itself) are playing the best, and which are playing the worst?

My Picks:

Best:

Cassel - a very good leader if nothing else. He's taking a beating and still making plays when given the chance

Colquitt - bad ones here and there but generally he wins the field position fight for us. top punter in net yds

Hali- closest thing to a pass rush we can muster

O'callaghan - not shattering opponents but a pleasant suprise at RT

 

Worst:

Niswanger - god awful. just gets blown up constantly.

Goff- see above.

Secondary - getting torched on big plays

For those of you who are already calling for Cassel's head: ease the noise. Matt Cassel is playing behind the 28th ranked pass blocking Offensive line, which is going to be a major adjustment for him to make given where he came from, and his playing style. There are two criticisms of Matt that I think are so far fair. 1) he reacts to pressure when it isn't there 2) his pocket awareness is off.

1) hes getting knocked around more than he had been used to, but mroe so, his time to make a play has been slashed. He is going to take a while to calm down from his current state of constant alarm.

2) Once he does the above, he wil settle and be more able to hang in the pocket when he does have time.

 

A criticism I do not feel is just is that he is a bad decision maker. Trent Dilfer dinged him on having difficulty making it through his progressions. I see why he is saying this, but I don't think that is what it is. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning progress throught options at light speed. Cassel is much more recursory and methodical. If his decisions were bad, he wouldnt have one of the best completion % in the league(08) and best TD-INT ratio. He is just very analytical about progression reads. Ben Roethlisberger is the same way. Even with a good line, Ben takes a lot of sacks. Cassel is the same way and thus got sacked a lot even with NE's line. It's just how he plays, and the offense should be adjusted to fit this. While like Ben, Matt Cassel takes longer to finish reads, and is very mobile, but he lacks the sort of arm strength ben has. Cassel is not a guy who is going to consistantly beat you deep. He is more of a mid range passer who hits guys in front of the defender. Since he has a poor line, Haley shold be drawing up plays that use a lot of hot routes, slants, crosses, and comebacks. Hot routes cut down the need for long reads and let him get the ball out of there fast. assuming it is executed well, he will be making a lot of 6-12 yd completions that keep us away from 3rd and long and the offense will speed up. Cassel can make those throws all day as he has shown. Even when guys are covered he can slip the ball right into the spot it needs to be. Cassel is very accurate passer with the ability to beat you underneath every time. So far both of his INTs were more so fantastic plays by the defender than out of place passes.

 

Cassel is:

Lethally accurate

Very smart

A good, detailed reader

mobile enough to get away or save/extend plays

 

He just needs to calm down and play to his strengths. Haley has also got to trust him enough to let him beat his opponent instead of calling draw plays on 3rd and 15. The thing that I fell makes calling for Cassle's head the silliest is that he has been thus hardly had anything asked of him other than make it to the end alive.

Let him loose Todd.

A point I always harp on is playing guys out of position. if you play any chess you know you can't switch a pawn and rook; it just won't work. Positions in football are, for the most part, the same way. When people complain that Branden Albert is not playing up to expectations, I always defend him as a victim of poor placement. Albert was a great LG in college. We go draft him and wonder why hes not a phenom at LT. Well it just isn't his position. Given this, I'm thinking that when Brain Waters is gone, the natural replacement is Albert. I'm starting to favor putting Waters on the market as soon as now so we can offload his contract and make room for a young Albert at his natural position. Waters does not seem happy here and is entering the twilight of his career. He certainly still has some market  value so he is a perfect trade candidate. For now RT appears filled at least adequately with O'callaghan and Ndukwe so unless we pull a player for player trade (Waters for good LT), which has become rather uncommon, then we are left with a hole at LT.

Next offseason might see the chiefs looking for a LT and C to round out a good line.

I watched Jack Harry after the game vs the Giants and he discussed LJ's "ego" comment. Harry was confused as the what LJ meant and apparently a lot of people are. Here is my analysis of what LJ means:

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This isn't a Chiefs related issue, aside from this being able to happen to anyone. The question is: if Michael Crabtree does hold out for the entire season, what happens to the 49ers? Does he owe them anything for shafting them out of their #1 pick? Will SF get a compensatory pick next year? is their any (other) way the team will be compensated for this? Just something i've wondered for a while. It seems wrong to let a team's draft picks just dissolve into thin air.

I was excited when we got Todd Haley. I thought he brought something that this team needed: a swift kick in the ass and a frank admission that we needed big time change. When he took over play calling duties I thought we would have an agressive offense that would try to punch the other team in the mouth, even if it missed. So far, however, Haley's play calling has been junk. Today he was callind dinky draw plays on 3rd and 20. Every third and long we had he ran some silly run play that had no hope to get us the yards we needed. The only time he didn't run on 3rd was 3rd and 1, an obvious run down. 3rd and 1 is 90% of the reason you pay LJ, or any NFL RB, a hefty salary. As the game drew on the running game was showing itself to be a failure, yet Haley stubbornly resulted to it all the more. The more it flopped, the more he ran it seemed. The two drives where we showed any willingness to go down field on them, we scored two touchdowns. Haley called and UBER CONSERVATIVE game which gave us no hope to win. Say what you will of the calibur of talent we have but it seemed like we didn't even try. I never felt like Haley was actively trying to beat the Eagles. Maybe the Chiefs were outclassed from jump, and we probably were. It is reasonable for this Chiefs team to fall to that Eagles team. I won't put the loss squarely oh Haley's shoulders, but I do blame his horrific play calling for the blowout.

I know you don't have Warner, Boldin, and Fitz. I also know you can't win without attacking your opponent.

Go big or go home.

I'm going to offer a reason for why the Chiefs are not as good as they should be, in spite of the talent we have.

Our two biggest problem areas are the lines on each side of the ball. consider this fact, a large number of our guys are playing out of position.

 

Glen Dorsey drafted as a RG. We had a Pro Bowl RG so we stuck him at RT

Rudy Niswanger is a G playing C

Andy Alleman is a C/RG playing LG

Wade Smith plays every position along the line

Ike Ndukwe is a LG playing LT

  you can say C to G is nothing but C is responsible for line calls so he needs to be able to read a defense like a QB

Thats 5 of 8 OL guys spending at least some time out position. that is 3 or 5 starters

 

now on the Defensive side

 

Glen Dorsey was drafted as a DT and we have him at DE

Alex Magee was drafted as a DT and is playing DE

Tamba Hali is a DE playing OLB who is awkwardly sized for both. he is probably best as a 4-3 DE

Andy Studebaker is a DE playing OLB

Peirre Walters in a DE playing OLB

Demorrio Williams is an OLB playing ILB

 

 

If we just played guys at their natureal positions, we would probably get more out of them. This is my suspicion why there is underperformance along the lines, especially from Dorsey and ALbert.