Matt Cassel named starter

[Loki]

Mike Zimmer has named Matt Cassel the starting QB for week 1 against the rams. I just wanted to gauge every ones thoughts on the situation.. Personally I'm just glad its not Ponder lol. I've been a huge supporter of Teddy Bridgewater starting but I definitely think we are making the best decision for the team as a whole starting Cassel.

[dead_poet]

@mattvensel -- Zimmer said he will treat QB like every other position when it comes to performance, so Cassel will have to play well to remain the starter.

[Purple bruise]

Great to hear

[NextQuestion]

Hopefully the "easily correctable" solutions to Cassel's potential struggles will be to bench him for Teddy. Fine with Matty starting.

[Slick Rick]

Anyone else hear what Zim had to say about PFF?

I immediately thought of this place.

[HornedMessiah]

So I wonder if Jaws still considers Cassel to be the worst starting QB in the league now that teams have actually played preseason games...

[dead_poet]

Anyone else hear what Zim had to say about PFF?

I immediately thought of this place.

Jim will enjoy it.

[dead_poet]

For Jim:

http://blog.startribune.com/sports/acce ... ball-focus

[Mothman]

For Jim:

http://blog.startribune.com/sports/acce ... ball-focus

Thanks!

“I look at the grades and I can’t tell you what a 0.7 is or anything like that,” said Zimmer, who is in his first year as head coach. “I know the people that are grading our games and our defenses and our offenses, they don’t know if the tackle gets beat inside he wasn’t sliding out to the nickel, or who our guys are supposed to cover. I guarantee they don’t know who’s in our blitz package and what they’re supposed to do. I would just ask that everybody take that with a grain of salt, including our fans. We as coaches get paid a whole bunch of money to do the jobs that we do, evaluate the players that we evaluate and grade them how we grade them, not based on something else.”

My grade for Zimmer's press conference is an A+.

[vikeinmontana]

Thanks!
My grade for Zimmer's press conference is an A+.

me too! there is just so much that we fans have no clue about. I always get a kick out of these "grades" when the "graders" many times aren't sure what it is they're "grading". but hey...more power to them. If I could get paid the salary I do now for "grading" players and other people actually listened to me I'd consider myself pretty smart...

[dead_poet]

FWIW, Cris Collinsworth just bought stake in the website:

http://www.yardbarker.com/all_sports/ar ... s/17128961

According to King, Cris Collinsworth was so impressed by Pro Football Focus that he didn’t just become a subscriber – he became a part-owner. So this spring, Collinsworth was looking to improve his data collection, and signed up for an annual insider’s subscription to PFF. The free part of the site looked real, but he wanted to know more, and so he filled in the email contact form asking for someone to get back to him. Hornsby, with his thick English accent, phoned up. “I thought I’d been scammed,’’ Collinsworth said. “So I figured I would ask him a bunch of questions, you know, to expose him … and after about five minutes, I could tell he was absolutely legit, so I just shut up and listened to Neil talk about football at a very high level.” At first, Collinsworth said he wanted to simply get to know more about all 32 teams without having to do the kind of film study and painstaking research that would take a couple of days at least—in his words, “to be in position Monday morning to know what would normally take me till Tuesday night to know.’’ Collinsworth said he was actually thinking of engaging some people to watch NFL tape and grade it for him until he realized PFF already did it, and did it accurately.

There was one final test for Collinsworth. He and Hornsby separately graded a game. When they compared notes, their grades were very close. “And when we went back over them,’’ Collinsworth said, “I’d say on 50 percent of the discrepancies, they were right and I was wrong.” The deal came together in a couple of months this summer, culminating last week. “What really impressed me,’’ said Collinsworth, “is the fact that 13 NFL teams have contracted with Pro Football Focus for their data. I mean, I have been around the NFL for over 30 years, I know how hard it is to get behind the wall of those teams. And they’ve got 13 teams to trust their data. That’s huge.’’

[vikeinmontana]

to be clear, I think it is a great site and I have visited many times. and overall I think they do a great job evaluating talent. but there are many things that they simply don't know what they are talking about because they don't know every single assignment. this goes for offense and defense. I think zimmer summed it up great and shared my feelings exactly.

[S197]

My grade for Zimmer's press conference is an A+.

I think you mean +4.26

[J. Kapp 11]

So I wonder if Jaws still considers Cassel to be the worst starting QB in the league now that teams have actually played preseason games...

Well, Jaws HAS watched every snap Matt Cassel has taken in his entire life at least 12 times, including Pop Warner practices and that impromptu beach football game in Point Break (Cassel was the QB on Bodie's team against Johnny Utah -- bet you didn't know that, but Jaws did ... he knows everything).

If Jaws says Cassel is the worst, you can take it to the bank -- he's the worst. We're doomed.

[PurpleHalo]

Cassel seems to grasp Norvs offense well, no problem with this decision. The early portion of the schedule wouldn't seem to be a place for a rookie. Cassel is more equipped to take the ups and downs in stride.