Don Banks needs to spend a few more minutes thinking out his Snap Judgments

From Don Banks latest Snap Judgments column, comes this:

If we're talking about strictly the most valuable player in the league, how can you argue that anyone means more to his team than Matt Cassel does to the Chiefs?

Anyone who knows how to say the "Phillip Rivers," "Tom Brady," or "Peyton Manning"* instantly has a better argument than any Cassel for MVP advocates.

For serious, Matt Cassel is, by just about any metric, a marginally above average quarterback. At best, he's the third most valuable component on his own team's offense behind Jamal Charles and Dwayne Bowe. Meanwhile, Rivers, Brady, and Manning are far and away the most important players on their team's offense and are better than Cassel in every metric.

*I don't necessarily think those should be the top 3 finishers in the MVP vote; those guys are both in the same conference as Cassel and obviously more valuable at his position than him.

We saw what [The Chiefs] were without [Cassel] last week at San Diego, when Kansas City produced just 67 yards of offense in a 31-0 loss.

Brody Croyle is awful, but there's no way that the dropoff between Cassel and Croyle is as profound as the gulf of talent between Rivers, Brady, Manning, and their respective backups.

But in Sunday's 27-13 Chiefs' win at St. Louis, Cassel helped keep his club in first place in the AFC West, throwing for 184 yards and a touchdown

With numbers like that, they might as well just rename the MVP award: "The Matt Cassel Award for Best QB EVAR!!"

With Cassel back, the Rams (6-8) couldn't just key on the Kansas City running game like San Diego did.

The Rams stink. The Chargers don't.

The result was the Chiefs (9-5) rumbled for 210 yards rushing, with Jamaal Charles leading the way with 126 yards and a touchdown on just 11 carries.

MVP = Most Valuable Player-who-hands-the-ball-off-on-nearly-every-play

Anonther idiotic trade Tom Brady article

This time coming from Dave Heuschkel at SI. I'm not going to go too deep into it, but here are a couple gems:

Cassel is in the final year of his contract. The Patriots could let him go or slap the franchise tag on him trade him [to the 49ers] for a first-round draft pick.

Yes, the mythical franchise tag and trade for the 49er's #1 draft pick idea that many people (including Bill Simmons) are latching on to. Of course, no one seems to consider any of the following factors that might dissuade the 49ers from eagerly handing their 2009 first round choice over for Cassel:

1. There's a good likelihood that the draft will be stacked with QBs.
2. San Francisco has been kinda decent with Shaun Hill.
3. Matt Cassel has been, shall we say, inconsistent against a cupcake schedule.
4. If the Patriots franchise Cassel, that will mean that they will have to pay him around $10 million for the 2009 season if they can't trade him. Cassel and Brady combined would be making around $25 million, or about 1/5 of the total salary cap. One would think the 49ers could used this to their advantage at the bargaining table.

Cassel's numbers in his first season as a starting quarterback are similar to Brady's stats in 2001 when he permanently replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe, who was the face of the franchise.

Cassel has completed 63.8 percent of his passes and thrown for 3,270 yards with 18 touchdowns, 11 interceptions and a QB rating of 87.1 In Brady's first season as a starter, he posted a 63.9 completion percentage and threw for 2,843 yards with 18 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and an 86.5 rating.

Peyton Manning's QB Rating his rookie year: 71.2
Does Peyton Manning have a lingering knee injury: Yes
Does Manning have a career 90+ QB Rating (like Brady): Yes
Why the Colts aren't tripping over themselves trying to get Matt Cassel: I don't know.

For the truly thick headed, I've made a logical flow chart to describe the situation:

IF Brady can play close to the level he did in 2007
THEN you don't trade him, unless you're a mouth breathing idiot

IF it is unclear whether or not Brady will ever return to form
THEN you wait until you're absolutely sure before considering a trade

IF Brady's health is still months away from being determined
THEN you don't write moronic articles about inane hypotheticals in the middle of one of the most exciting ends to the NFL regular season in years.

I will close with some of the comments from SI's commenters on this article (these are all from the first 20 out of 231 comments):

"What are you smoking?How did you get this job?"

"This is the dumbest thing I've ever read, or seen for that matter. Dumbest. Inexplicable. Indefensible. Just plain stupid."

"Does this guy usually cover Volleyball? Find a new line of work, you're bad at this one."

"YOU ARE STEALING MONEY FROM SI."

"How in the world do they let people like you write about sports? You should be ashamed and embarassed that the whole world gets to see your stupidity."

"[Who] the **** gave you a job? There are thousands of people looking for new jobs in these economic times and you got it?"

"This is hands down the stupidest thing I've read in 2008. And that includes my political news stories."

"Are you Matt Millen in disguise??"

Yup, those are his readers.

Gregg Easterbrook: Not a fan of Tom Brady, Randy Moss, logic

Brady is a superb athlete, but right now he may be at some supermodel's Mediterranean seaside villa wincing, because Cassel is demonstrating that Brady was not essential for the Patriots to win. If New England had melted down without Brady, that would have cemented Tom's reputation as an all-time talent. If the Patriots end up having a great season without Brady, nobody will hold that against No. 12, but the focus will shift away from Brady and toward the New England team and system overall. Say what you like about Bill Belichick -- and there are many things not to like -- he runs the best ship in the NFL. And choose your nautical cliché: the ship has steered off the rocks, is back to flank speed, is headed to the blue water, etc.

I understand that the Pats have had more go wrong for them this season than just losing Brady and might account for their less than perfect record, but this talk about possibly ditching Tom Brady (regardless of his health when he returns) is bat-shit crazy.

First of all though, I think it's pretty abysmal that Gregg Easterbrook lavishes so much praise on "the system," but completely ignores one of the biggest reasons for Cassel's success: Randy Moss. Observe the following Quarterbacks who've posted 90+ QB Ratings over 2 games or more in a season when playing with Randy Moss:

Randal Cunningham (his 2nd and last time)
Jeff George (his 2nd and last time)
Daunte Culpepper (3/5 seasons with Moss, hasn't posted a 90+ since Moss's departure)
Todd Bouman (Over the course of 3 games with Moss; the only other time in his career he started 3 games in a season was with New Orleans where he put up a 54.7 rating)
Gus Frerotte (never broke the 90 QB Rating threshold before or after)
Tom Brady (held a 90+ QB rating in 2 seasons without Moss, never had a season below 85.9)
Matt Cassel (currently sporting a 90.5)

Furthermore, while Cassel and the Pats currently sport a 7-4 record, they haven't exactly been playing the stiffest competition. The 2007 Pats played (and beat) 6 playoff teams, the 9-7 Cleveland Browns, and the 8-8 Philadelphia Eagles. The 2008 Pats get to play against The AFC West and The NFC West, the two worst divisions in the NFL, with 2 "playoff teams" among them who probably wouldn't make the playoffs in any other division.

Finally, while Cassel might've lit up the opposing defenses in the past two games and currently hold that 90.5 QB rating, it doesn't come anywhere close to the 117.2 with 4,806 yds and 50 tds that Brady had in 2007. Easterbrook, et all. seem to have forgotten this, and that is really stupid.