No, I only know one thing about Matt Cassell... but I feel like it's the only thing that's important. All I know is that nobody else knows anything about Cassell, either. He might look great in shorts, but so did A.J. Feeley, David Garrard, Billy Volek, Rohan Davies, etc, etc, etc. I am just extremely skeptical that any team would give up anything of value for a guy with absolutely *NO* idea of how he would perform against quality competition. And by "quality competition", I really mean anything tougher than Division 4 high school football. Matt Cassell might be the next Matt Hasselbeck, for all I know... but I have a hard time envisioning any team giving up a lot to find out without a single scrap of evidence that he can play at the NFL (or even Division 1 college) level.
I'm not saying I'm going to be surprised if Matt Cassell goes somewhere and becomes a starter. I'm saying I'm going to be surprised if Matt Cassell commands a lot in trade when he goes.
Feeley was traded for an early second round pick (the pick that turned into Reggie Brown). Garrard started for the Jaguars last year.
The Titans let McNair go, intending to keep only Volek. That was a huge commitment. Unfortunately, he had a bad camp, and they decided to sign Collins. With that information out there, and at the worst time in the trade market for starter caliber quarterbacks, he still got a sixth round pick.
Matt Hasselbeck fetched a 1.10 and a third for 1.17 and a seventh. He had never started a single game in the pros.
The Feeley debacle was widely viewed as a joke at the time of the trade, and in retrospect was possibly the worst move of a long and sordid string of horrible moves by Miami's front office. Ditto that for the Volek thing (actually, that wasn't viewed as a joke at the time, but in retrospect, yeah, that was a mistake). Also, I don't see what the fact that David Garrard started last year has to do with anything. He was seen for years as one of the best backups in the entire NFL, and nobody at all was interested in giving up anything of value for him. Heck, they STILL aren't interested in giving up anything of value for him.NFL GMs may be a lot of things, but they're generally pretty good at learning from the mistakes of others. I think if Schaub turns out to be a rousing success story, then maybe Cassell might get some looks, but as things currently stand, I just cannot imagine a team giving up anything of value for a player who quite literally has not taken a meaningful snap at *ANY LEVEL OF COMPETITION* since Fall 2000.
I could very well be surprised, but that's exactly what it would be- a huge surprise. I mean, what, is a prospective suitor going to go back and break down tape of his senior year of high school? Maybe look at some hot preseason footage of him? Obviously they aren't going to look at tapes of training camps or in-season workouts, since this is Bill Belichick we're talking about- the guy who treats his coffee order like a state secret and forbids his barber from speaking to the media. How could any team even fall in love with Cassell in the first place?