I thought it all week, and I still think it....we picked the wrong time to move from Weeden to Cassel.
Yes, Weeden is labeled check-down Charlie, but he's also the guy who Witten on a deep seam route vs. NO after missing him vs. Atlanta; the guy who hit the TD pass to Williams, the guy who hit the long sideline pass perfectly to Butler; and the guy who hit the deep slant td perfectly to Williams vs. PHilly....and the guy who missed the meaningless td pass to a wide open Williams vs. the Patriots.
He's also the guy with the best QB rating and very few turnovers.
We all knew that the Giants had the worst defense we might face all year due to injuries to all three areas, especially in a depleted secondary. As far as backup QB's go, we see very little upside in either of ours to ever be starters, but I thought this was the wrong game to replace Weeden. Most of Cassel's success came throwing to TE's and RBs, just like Weeden, and he hit some receivers who actually worked open vs. a poor secondary, something they hadn't been doing.
However, we also saw some terrible decisions by Cassel, throwing passes where guys weren't open, throwing passes too soon under pressure. He threw 3 poor ints. The long pass was absolutely pathetic...underthrown, and Williams did try to come back to the ball, but it was double coverage and the safety had better position. The pass on the sidelines was a typical pattern where Williams turns and looks for the pass to be there, in blanketed and assumes the pass is going elsewhere....you can argue that he should have run to the sideline and defended the pass, but Cassel didn't even look elsewhere...he could have simply thrown it out of bounds. The pass over the middle was into heavy coverage as well, and worse, he threw at least 3 other passes that could easily have been intercepted. Even two of the completed passes we were all wondering how the defender didn't pick those off.
Maybe you need a guy to take risks vs. NE, but against these poor teams, like the Giants, I would have been perfectly happy with a QB taking the open man. ONe pass Cassel got away with throwing down the field, McFadden was wide open shorter, but was passed up. Personally, with the pass protection being very good, I didn't see a QB willing to stand in the pocket and wait to make the right decisions either.
Weeden stinks as a starting QB, but I think we win that game with him instead of Cassel....just my opinion, and I'd rather have Weeden vs. Philly as well.
Linehan finally stuck with a RB and gave him the ball over and over even after 2-3 yard gains, and it paid off. Protecting the ball and hitting the open receivers was the correct strategy vs. the Giants. Instead we got 3 turnovers and a 17.9 QBR. Will he get better? He had a few weeks including the bye with the receivers, and at his age, that's a good question. Personally, vs. the pass rush of the Seahawks, I predict at least 3 more interceptions from Cassel making rushed and poor decisions, along with floating passes.
