Pneumonic

With news that Tom Brady is back onto the football field, dropping back and tossing passes, it seems as though one of the very first things new hire Reese will have to concern himself with is what to do with Matt Cassel. This is what Reese had to say on the topic of Cassel's value back in mid January before he signed on with the Pats. Taken from http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afceast

Peppers for Matt Cassel ............ Both tagged and traded for each other. This way Peppers gets a top chance to win a SB with a 3-4 team that can certainly scheme him in the most effective way to maximize his immense talent and skills Panthers aren't going to keep Delhomme (he's due to count $12 milliin on the cap) and he's not very good so they get a top QB who is young and who has plenty of upside. Pats get top return for Cassel and add a stud player who can be their new Willie McGinest.

The Kid's gonna parlay a great bowl game into $millions as a top 15 pick this April. Good for him but the guys got bust written all over him. Any team which is considering drafting Sanchez outta trade for Cassel instead.

They should let his victims shoot him.

At his age Ralph isn't interested in having to contest with a strong minded person at the helm of his team so the yes man Jauron stays employed.

Belicheck showed how far superior a football mind he has than Jauron and company it's embarrassing.

Donte's just deflecting attention away from the steamroll job Sammie laid on him.

Mangini is a fraud and a snitch and will be lucky to be coaching Pop Warner ball in the future. Don't want him even as bad as Jauron is.

Mangini and his staff are likely coaching for their jobs (Mangini possibly his career after the rat job he pulled on Belicheck) in this game so I suspect they'll have the troops ready and raring to go. Further, this might well be Favre's swan song so you gotta figure he'll play balls to the wall. Further still, I doubt the Jets players who were on the team last year and in years past will want to see Pennington come back to the Meadowlands and beat them so they'll likely be primed. if that's not enough, the Jets could still get in if the Jags beat the Ravens in the other flexed 4 o'clock game.

Hi, Ed. I read that the Pats will be under the cap by as much as $25 million next year without any critical internal free agents to have to worry about re-signing. Further, I believe Belicheck will use the questionable status of Brady due to his injury as justification to any possible interested team that the Pats will keep Cassel in case Brady can't go. I suspect Belichek will use this leverage even though he may know that Brady is good to go in order to maximize Cassel's trade value. The Pats are masters at playing the this game and will maximize their return on Cassel. And with so many teams in desperate need of a top calibre QB the offers for Cassel should be many.

The Pats will tag Cassell knowing that they'll have as many as 10 serious suitors for Cassell's services. With so many teams in dire need of a top QB the Pats won't have to worry about having all of them "wait them out". You'll see a bunch of QB needy (read lousy and unattractive to play for) teams jumping up to the head of the line so that they don't miss out on the opportunity of getting hold of Cassell before he's free and clear to sign with more attractive teams. My guess is the Pats will trade Cassell to the Lions for the #1 overall pick in the 2009 draft. Or some combo of similar value spread out over a couple years If you are the Lions and are thinking about taking either QB Bradford or Stafford 1st overall and then paying one of them the money that the 1st overall gets (ie. 6 years, $70 million, with $35 million in guarantees) then you'd be crazy not to jump all over an already proven, very good and experienced NFL QB like Cassell instead of taking a huge gamble on an unproven college kid who will not likely pay dividends for some time. Cassell will step in and start and be a top QB right away. Very few rookie QB's do so.

I think the Lions will exchange 1st round picks with the Patriots for the right to sign Matt Cassell after the Patriots slap the franchise tag on him.

The Patriots have a running game because of Cassell and the passing attack. They are one of the few NFL teams that pass to setup the run. They are able to do so because they have top QB's running their system.

The Cassell kid obviously is talented. He's been kept on Patriots SB caliber teams the past 4 years for a reason. And, judging by how well he's been playing, he's been exceptionally well schooled during that time. This should be no surprise being on the Patriots team. Unless he forgets all he has been taught there is no reason to believe he can't keep playing this way wherever he ends up. The part that sucks the most is the Patriots are gonna tag the guy and then trade him to the highest bidder, reaping huge draft dividends in the process. Cleveland turned down a 1st and 3rd last year for Andersen and Cassell is a far better QB, and was groomed within a winning organization, so I can only imagine what the Patriots might get for the kid.

The draft and free agency has seen to it that every team in the NFL has a nucleus of good, young players. Heck, we have had a nucleus of good, young players for some time and what has it gotten us? Didley and squat. The root of the problems with this team exceeds far beyond the talent level of its players. This much is plainly obvious to anyone who has watched them play this last decade.

If Cassel keeps progressing from here on out the Pats will have a very valuable commodity on their hands. Not only would he be valuable insurance in case Brady isn't 100% next year but he'd also likely command serious and significant interest from QB needy teams out there. If Brady gets back to his old self my guess is the Pats would franchise Cassel and trade him. The Pats are in excellent cap shape to absorb the tag hit on Cassel if only temporarily until he's traded.

What I learned is that a full strength Jets team needed a favorable coin flip in OT in order to beat a Patriots team that were so injured at key spots that they had no right to be competitive. Now either the Jets are pretenders or the Pats are at another level or more (if healthy) from the Jets.

The key to trading Spikes might boil down to his contract status. How many years left does he have on the contract and how much is his base salary in those years?

They won't be if the OL get their hands on him because our DL whiffs blocking all the time as was the case last year. If Fletch has even an adequate DL in front of him keeping blockers off him he's a pro bowl player.

If June and Harper are the two best remaining free agents then the pickings are very slim, almost non existant.

You can't fault just Fletch for the inferior play of the defense. If this were the case you'd welcome the change of the entire unit.

I'm not the biggest Clements supporter but anyone who deosn't believe he's a top player at the CB position in this league is simply not being objective. If one were to peruse most any publication, web site, magazine. etc which tracks the top free agents of this past offseason they would find that Clements is almost unanmously rated at the top of these lists. And for good reason. My biggest worry in losing Fletch is as a leader and mentor but others can fill that void I hope. I don't worry about replacing Willis.

First time poster long time lurker. We all need to realize that Marv is tearing down the team in order to rebuild it. When this happens you tend to have turnover where you lose good players and might not immediately get better or more capable players to replace them with. This is what is happening to us right now. It's the growing pains of rebuilding our team where we have to walk before we can run. The key is how do we replace them lost players ...... over time and not over a couple of weeks time. Hopefully Marv has the proper gameplan in place to do so and we successfully see those new players being added.