More thoughts on Matt Cassel

We have no idea what, if any, interest Brad Childress has in Matt Cassel.

There should be some, however, considering how bad the Vikings quarterback situation has been with Childress coaching the team. And as uncertain as many of us (including me) are about Cassel’s ability - he’s young, he’s in his athletic prime and the team he currently plays for is probably willing to trade him.

That’s a combination that is hard to find.

But let’s discuss the availability part: One thing that hasn’t been brought up in the Cassel-to-the-Vikings chatter is that New England may not want to trade Cassel until the summer because they want to see how healthy Tom Brady’s knee is.

And if the Patriots are willing to wait that long, that may not dovetail with the Vikings interests. This is a Vikings team that showed in a playoff loss that it needs better quarterbacking to challenge for a Super Bowl. It’s also a team that needs to sell tickets to keep the Metrodome filled and avoid a bunch of local TV blackouts. There’s going to be a lot of pressure internally (from owner Zygi Wilf) and externally (from fans like me, although Childress should ignore that) to do something more at quarterback than sign a Gus Frerotte.

So if the Patriots decide to wait until June or July to trade Cassel, the Vikings probably can’t afford to wait that long to do something. The team can’t be caught waiting for Cassel to become available, only to find out Brady’s knee is slow coming around and the Patriots have decided to keep Cassel. If that happens, it's another season of the Tarvaris Jackson Experience. You can imagine how that will go over with the Vikings fanbase.

The Vikings probably have to get their new starting quarterback in March or April. That could mean settling on someone else, like Jeff Garcia, even if Cassel is their top choice.

But that probably is a good thing.

What one game can tell us
You may have heard Brett Favre retired this week, so NFL Network has been showing Favre “firsts” ever since – first comeback, first Super Bowl, first retirement (that's a joke).

Saturday night the network aired the Jets/Patriots game where Favre and the Jets won in overtime.

I watched because I wanted to get a good look at Cassel. What I saw was a guy with a good arm, and he can can make the short throws and he can scramble. What I didn't see was Cassel completing passes beyond 15 yards. During the telecast it was mentioned he had missed something like 11 straight throws of 20 yards or more at that point.

I’m not sure if Cassel improved on that total in his final six games (later, after this was mentioned, Cassel badly overthrew a wide open Randy Moss for a potential touchdown), but that’s worrisome. Opposing defences already know the Vikings throw a lot of short passes. If Cassel’s strength is throwing short passes and he can’t hit Bernard Berrian on deep passes, how is the Vikings offence going to be markedly better with Cassel?

Then there is the matter of the guy making the ultimate decision on Cassel’s abilities – Brad Childress. It’s not reassuring to Vikings fans that this is the man who thought Brad Johnson could get the job done and then thought Tarvaris Jackson could get the job done and brought in Brooks Bollinger, Kelly Holcomb and Gus Frerotte (don’t forget Mike McMahon!) thinking they could get the job done if Johnson or Jackson couldn’t.

So with that track record, we’re depending on Childress to make the right call on Cassel.