Cassel ready to step into spotlight for Pats

Sep 8, 2008 - 7:18 PM By Mike Petraglia PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

FOXBOROUGH, Massachusetts (Ticker) -- By his own admission, it's been a long time since Matt Cassel played an entire game that mattered.

"It had to be high school, I'd have to say," Cassel said after throwing his first NFL touchdown since 2005 in leading the New England Patriots to a 17-10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday at Gillette Stadium.

Since graduating from Chatsworth (California) High School in 2000, Cassel has spent the last eight years backing up two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks (Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart) at Southern California and three-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady with the Patriots.

The Patriots backup quarterback for the last three seasons and on Sunday has suddenly and dramatically been thrust into the lead role after a left knee injury ended Brady's season.

You never know when you're going to play and this is a great example of that. It's the first day, opening day, you don't know if you're going to play or if you're going to play three times in the fourth quarter like I did last year," Cassel said. "It's one of those situations where I'm going to prepare the same way, I'm going to go in there with the same energy and excitement and try and get ready for the Jets."

When Brady went down with 7:27 remaining in the first quarter Sunday, Cassel took over the offense and his first drive started at his own 2-yard line. Two rushes into the line of scrimmage lost one yard. As Cassel faced a 3rd-and-11 at his own 1, his teammates gave him the support he will need going forward.

"Everybody just (said) words of encouragement: 'get ready to go' and 'we need you,'" Cassel said. "It was good. I felt their support throughout the entire game and they were there for me. I just took that and it motivated me to do well and motivated me to do my job."

The career backup then threw the biggest pass of his career when he found Randy Moss near the right sideline. The 51-yard pass helped everyone settle down, including Cassel.

"We had a few handoffs in there and you start to just say 'look, I'm going to be playing here,'" Cassel said. "You just take a deep breath and you get going. After that pass though, it definitely calmed the nerves down a little bit and I said 'I can do this' and 'let's roll'.

"It was good," Belichick said of Cassel's debut. "It could have been better, but I thought he handled the team well and made some accurate throws. I thought that was a big play coming off the goal line. He hit (Randy) Moss. That was right in front of me. I got a good look at that one. He made a great throw on that coming out of the end zone."

Entering this season, Cassel hadn't thrown a touchdown pass since 2005 but Belichick watched as his team responded to the new quarterback on the first drive after Brady went down. Cassel threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Moss, putting the Patriots ahead 7-0.

"I thought overall, he threw the ball pretty well. He managed the team well," Belichick said. "We didn't have a lot of misaligned plays and miscommunications. There is a lot of room for improvement but I thought he stepped in and did a good job."

As for that last high school game that mattered. Cassel recalled that it didn't end nearly as well as Sunday's contest .

"It was the last game versus Poly in the third round of the (California high school) playoffs, or something like that," Cassel said. "We ended up losing. We didn't go to the championship, unfortunately, but that's how it goes."

Belichick and the Patriots are hoping for more from Cassel this time.