"If only we had seen Cassel, Patterson and Rhodes all season

[PurpleKoolaid]

I didn't know there was any Robinson love. Isnt he still near the bottom when it comes to CB's? We could call up Benny Sapp and no one would know the difference between the 2. Robinson is as big of a bust as Cook is.

[J. Kapp 11]

In that case, well done , Matt Cassel!

The o-line really delivered on that play. Gerhart had a great hole to run through and build up some momentum. Once he gets going in the open field, he runs like a tank!

The o-line DID deliver ... and assuming the report is true, that Cassel audibled into the play, then his audible had everything to do with the O-line's success. A good quarterback sees a mismatch or a defensive formation he can take advantage of, and he changes the play to put his team in the best position to exploit it.

Because I know this will chap you, Jim, I'll remind you that a certain old man did that a few times in 2009.

As for the article, it's all fine and dandy to say it now. For what it's worth, I agree with the article. But many of us on this board have been saying the same thing for weeks. Five losses in the last minute. No doubt, that's on the defense, but let's face it ... the offense has been fairly horrible for most of the season.

From my vantage point, Christian Ponder should have been benched against Cleveland, never to see the field again -- and I (and others) been saying that consistently ever since then. Souhan is saying it now. How convenient.

It's just a feeling I had sitting in the stadium that day in September. Ponder was lost. Worse, he was scared. I was close enough to the field to see it. His body language was absolutely horrible, that of a defeated man. You CAN'T have that in your most important leadership position. Is Matt Cassel the long-term answer? Probably not. But he's had success in the league, and that fact is fairly obvious to me when he plays. The rest of the offense plays better when he's under center. The tempo is better, the attitude is better.

Just my 2 cents. I realize YMMV.

[Mothman]

Maybe its a generation gap but your comment definitely seemed to me like you were giving a bit of credit to Musgrave for making sure his QB had two play calls at the line of scrimmage like every other offence coordinator does in the league.

I was giving some credit to Musgrave but not at Cassel's expense. My point was that there was no need for NextQuestion to retract his compliment because even though Cassel made the excellent decision to audible to the run, Musgrave was presumably the one who set up the option to go to that particular run. In the end, both men probably did a good job and did exactly what they're paid to do on that play.

Now, if the audible was all Cassel's idea, that's a different story but I see no reason to assume that.

[J. Kapp 11]

I didn't know there was any Robinson love. Isnt he still near the bottom when it comes to CB's? We could call up Benny Sapp and no one would know the difference between the 2. Robinson is as big of a bust as Cook is.

Yeah, not long ago there was some stat floating around that Robinson had been targeted 50-something times with like 50-something-minus-3 completions. It was pretty horrible. Almost unbelievable -- in fact, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen every Vikings play this year with my own eyes. I'm not sure how that's an indication of improvement.

[Mothman]

The o-line DID deliver ... and assuming the report is true, that Cassel audibled into the play, then his audible had everything to do with the O-line's success. A good quarterback sees a mismatch or a defensive formation he can take advantage of, and he changes the play to put his team in the best position to exploit it.

Because I know this will chap you, Jim, I'll remind you that a certain old man did that a few times in 2009.

That doesn't bother me. He did do that in 2009, much to the team's benefit.

I was thinking about that "old man" today because a friend of mine is going to frigid Soldier Field tonight for the game and I was reminded of the cold MNF game I attended at Soldier Field in 2009. That was a wild one.