Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock …

By Os Davis  |   Wednesday, August 20, 2008  |  Comments( 6 )

New England Patriots
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The most disturbing thing this vacationer saw on his recent sojourn to the East Coast? Brother-in-law Marco’s television set. No, it had nothing to do with the technology itself: The guy had one of those great 50-inch LCD high-definition jobbies on which you could count the ladybugs per blade of glass from 20 feet; it was just that the hometown New England Patriots and the pigskin-chucking Matt Cassel filled the screen.

Watching Tom Brady’s would-be backup stumble and bumble with crystal clarity made me more aware than ever of that ticking clock imagined by Patriot fans since, what, 2006 or so? In surround sound, no less.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock ... there go the seconds passing by, those making up Cassel’s last days as a Patriot. Surely the methodical booming is louder than the pulse in Cassel’s head following another hit from a charging OLB coming off the edge after another painfully slow round of "decision"-making from ol’ No. 16.

Surely he’s heard it louder than ever after Sunday’s dismal follow-up which had pundits and observers everywhere figuratively shaking heads at the Patriots’ sorry offensive offering. With the way the Pats played on Sunday, Cassel is hardly to be singled out but if wonderstud Randy Moss hadn’t been out there to miraculously spin a couple of Cassel’s second-quarter ducks into receptions, Cassel might have found himself on waivers before the third quarter.

The erstwhile No. 2’s feeble 6-of-10 for 57 yards (2-of-3 for 25 to Moss alone) against Tampa Bay chased an aforementioned ugly performance in the preseason opener which had Cassel going 1-of-4 for 11 yards, one interception, taking one sack and earning one fumble recovery (of his own fumble, natch) – all this in just three proto-drives before Bill Belichick’s stomach apparently could take no more in the third.

(Just for the sake of cruelty, this gives Cassel a 34.22 quarterback rating in the preseason. In RF365’s fantasy league, he’d have earned you minus-1 points in Game 1 and plus-2 in Game 2. Is this when I should tell my statistics to shut up?)

Or maybe he first started hearing it in Week 7 of last season, when he famously came in to chuck a lovely 0-of-2 for zero yards and one interception. Cassel’s heroics in Week 11, with a late fourth-quarter 2-of-2 for 10 yards against a demoralized Buffalo Bills defense on the way to a 56-10 Patriot win improved Cassel’s QB rating for the year to 32.7.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock...

The Matt Cassel story is a bit of a chicken-or-egg tale: Has Cassel been so ineffectual because he rarely plays (just 14 appearances in his three years with the Patriots, eight times solely to run out the clock, and only once for more than one quarter in a single game) behind Iron Man Brady, or does Cassel rarely play because he’s so ineffectual?

The sole glimpse we’ve ever had of Brady’s supposed backup was back in Week 17 of 2005 (on Jan. 1, 2006, date of the Flutie drop-kick game), when the Pats had their playoff seed clinched and squared off against another hapless Miami Dolphins team: Cassel managed a line of 11-of-20 for 168 and two TD strikes. Right now the Patriots hardly need an Aaron Rodgers or Tony Romo, a talented young guy ready to take the reins of a comparably young offense after riding the pine behind an aging veteran, but as the Chicken Littles and assorted hypemongers on TV like to worry ... what happens if there’s an emergency, particularly with Brady’s mysterious foot injury still a question in media quarters?

Meanwhile, a pair of other wing-waiters – Matt Gutierrez and newly aboard rookie Kevin O’Connell – are showing more promise in preseason 2008 than Cassel has in four. Gutierrez looked particularly good in the early August game against the Baltimore Ravens in attempting to produce something out of the hash Cassel made and leading a comeback in the second half; Gutierrez showed the brainpower that Brady himself demonstrated way back in preseason 2001 in putting together a couple of nifty drives.

And if O’Connell has been less than stellar in his first two preseason appearances while uglily introduced to the twin concepts of NFL sacks and NFL pass coverage, at least Pat backers can take solace in the bright side: The former SDSUer certainly has no fear of snap decision-making and Belichick seems to have some confidence in the lad. In fact, of the last 11 snaps he took in the Tampa Bay contest, some 10 were turned into pass plays and all six of his completions in the game came on these final two drives. Plus, like Gutierrez and unlike Cassel, O’Connell has displayed correct instincts in scrambling on busted plays.

Surely still muttering about the woeful offensive display put forth last Sunday, the New England brain trust is just as certainly checking out the near-dead on the free agent market, including (shudder) Daunte Culpepper and (oh, Lordy) Aaron Brooks. The brush with the LCD-captured Cassel brought home to this observer with a flash to sudden sensibleness of recent Patriot signings of late-late career guys like Doug Flutie and Vinterception Testaverde.

And still that sound every time with the “highlight” tapes of New England’s 2008 preseason; reckon it’s even louder for Cassel, who must be counting the days before his Arena League debut.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock...

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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's...
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