DownSwinging.com

Former Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel signed a 6-year, $63 million contract with his new team this week, the Kansas City Chiefs. The length and amount of money that he signed for was surprising to some, as the floundering Chiefs decided to commit a lot to the man with just one year of NFL snaps behind him.

But the reality is that this deal was the right one for the Chiefs. NFL-proven quarterbacks are hard to come by, and even though Cassel wasn’t touted as being a stellar QB on his way to the pros, the fact is that he has something now that Matthew Stafford or Mark Sanchez both lack: real experience. Even though some players that come into the league with high expectations become Peyton Manning or Adrian Peterson, there’s no way of knowing, especially for a quarterback, if he can really handle the NFL. Some players are just the Ryan Leaf’s of the world, and it’s hard to predict. So is it worth it for the Chiefs to pay a little more money to have this guy around for the next six years? Absolutely.

You can’t win without having an effective quarterback. You don’t have to be stellar, but you have to be effective. Completing passes, not panicking in the pocket, these are things that have to happen. And Matt Cassel did those things for the Patriots, and was good, probably above-average for an NFL QB. So the Chiefs aren’t going to have to go through the adjustment period with a new quarterback, or bring in an over-the-hill veteran to keep them afloat in the mean time. No, the Chiefs can start improving now, which is what they need to know. And a couple years down the road, with the right assortment of young talent around him, Matt Cassel may find himself leading this team into the playoffs.