Last Sunday in New Jersey Matt Cassel, who hadn’t started a game since high school, was able to step in and lead the Patriots over the Jets, 19-10.  He was effective, efficient, and won a game that Vegas predicted he would lose. Granted, Cassel didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but the second-stringer was able to play a competent quarterback at the world’s highest level.  I, like most, don’t believe that Cassel is now an elite quarterback, but I don’t think his accomplishments are a fluke either. He was – and will continue to be – successful, but that probably won’t have much to do with how “good” he actually is.

Which isn’t to say that Matt Cassel isn’t capable. In a very real way Cassel is – he’s one of the 50 most talented men in the world at the narrow skill of quarterbacking. He was born with extraordinary coordination, arm strength, accuracy, and hair-trigger reactions.  Beyond that, he has dedicated the better part of his life to refining these skills, and developing the new ones of reading a defense, memorizing a playbook, and understanding his teammates’ relative strengths and weaknesses. So let’s not take anything away from him. Neither you nor I could have gone under center and succeeded. That said, while Matt Cassel’s talent may be otherworldly when compared to mine, in the field of NFL Quarterbacks he’s not a guy whose ability stands out.

It would be foolish to suggest that Cassel will be Brady’s equal - Brady is in the discussion for Best Quarterback ever and Cassel; well, Cassel hasn’t started a game since high school – but on some level, Cassel did prove how important context is. Cassel has two excellent wide receivers - Randy Moss and Wes Welker - available to him. He has an offensive line that has been together for years, several competent running backs and a disciplined defense that he trusts not to lose the game. He knows he can play within himself and be successful. By the end of the season I’m guessing everyone will view him that way – as a success.

What I’m driving at is that in sports, the system really matters. Take Jon Kitna and Marc Bulger. Who is better? Bulger right? It isn’t close. Well, maybe. When Kitna started for Seattle and Cincinnati he did only throw for between 2,600 and 3,500 yards a year, five years in a row.  Decent, but decidedly middle-of-road for an NFL starter. Kitna has never won a playoff game or been to a pro bowl. The last two years, however, in a Mike Martz system with leading weapons at wide receiver, he’s thrown for 4,000+ yards twice. Now, everyone still thinks of Kitna as a middle-of-the-road starter, which is probably still right. After all, Kitna is just the product of a pass-heavy offense, right? 

Again; maybe. What if Kitna were a couple years younger, and after being drafted by Martz came to maturity in the NFL entirely within a free-flowing pass first offense? What if his defense wasn’t as much of a sieve as it has been in the Matt Millon era, and what if the gaudy stats were all we knew of Kitna? 

Chances are he never would have led his team to a championship, but he’d probably have a couple of pro bowls and a fat contract under his belt. When Kitna occasionally lost a big game, we might blame the coach for not installing a system that could win a close one, or credit an opposing defense for game planning against such a proficient QB. We’d blame his coaches; in other words, not Kitna.  Though Kitna would still be Kitna, inside of the capable offensive system that highlighted his strengths he would seem like an elite QB. What would we think of him then? Probably, in this scenario – this context – we’d think he was a top ten QB, and we probably wouldn’t put an asterisk next to his gaudy numbers. He’d probably be Marc Bulger.

Bulger was drafted lower than Kitna and he bounced around the league more before latching on for good. Granted, neither of those are guarantees of future success (or lack thereof) but both are rough indicators of the level of predicted success the two had. But Bulger, unlike Kitna, came of age in a pass-heavy offense and put up big numbers right off the bat. Bulger has won just one playoff game, but he has made several pro bowls and over $80 million professionally. Maybe now that Bulger’s auxiliary talent has subsided, we think of him and Kitna in same breath. But there was a several-year period where we considered the Rams’ QB one of the best in the league, and the Lions’ as one of the worst. 

My point: If we stop squinting it’s almost impossible to separate a person from his social surroundings, and the longer a person stays in their setting the harder it is to separate them. Not to get too political here – but think what this means for the correlation of poverty and crime. Think of Kitna as a poor kid who comes up hard – we call him a bum because we’ve decided he’s a bum.  We’ve seen him in the context where ‘bum’ is what shows up. Bulger, on the other hand, is the dude with SAT scores (stats) that go with the wealthy parents (the Rams) and so we assume he’s talented and has earned his Ivy League admission (awards, fat contracts.)

It seems worth noting also that while the criminal is locked away for selling the future i-banker yay, Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson will play this Sunday because, in sports, we realize that sometimes people need a supportive environment to thrive.  It won’t be a surprise if either of those two get in trouble again, but then again it won’t seem like a shock if they don’t, either.

The fact that the Patriots won reflects back on Cassel; yes, but it reflects more on who the Patriots are and the talent that surrounds their marquee position. In short, context matters. Let’s not forget that that Cassel has spent the last eight years on the bench, but let’s also not be too surprised when he turns in a decent – or more than decent – year.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 11:32 am and is filed under Morning Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.