Stats That I Like From Kansas City Chiefs QB Matt Cassel

Arrowhead Pride contributor Jon Yoon is taking a look at Matt Cassel and whether he is the future of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Today I'm going to take a look at a couple of Matt Cassel stats that I like. Sitting at 3-1, it's not all bad with Cassel.

Poor throws

Stats LLC has a really neat statistic called poor throws. The definition is what you think it is: A poor throw by the quarterback.

Currently Matt Cassel is tied for 22nd in the NFL with 16 poor throws.

Here's the top five in poor throws: Donovan McNabb, Sam Bradford, Mark Sanchez, Joe Flacco and Philip Rivers.

The next question would be: What percentage of Cassel's throws are considered poor? It's a good question because Cassel isn't throwing it as much as some of those other guys.

That would be 15.1 percent of them which is about the middle of the league. Those five quarterbacks listed above? Yeah, all of them have a higher percentage of poor throws than Cassel.

This stat really surprised me because it kind of blows away the notion that a lot of the drops by the Chiefs receivers have been bad balls by Cassel. That's doesn't appear to be the case.

Intentional throwaways

Cassel is second in the NFL in intentional throwaway passes. Is that a good thing? Well, it depends on how you look at it.

The Chiefs are last in the NFL in sacks allowed this year. Where do you think those sacks went? Yeah, to the sidelines with Cassel's throwaways.

This is part of an overall push by the Chiefs to eliminate negative plays. Cassel has said on several occasions that the Chiefs have been working on throwing the ball away if nothing is there. Clearly, that's been effective.

I know intentionally thrown away balls shouldn't be a good stat but in this particular case I think it is. The Chiefs defense is good enough to the point where they need the offense to protect the ball and they're going to win a lot of games.

Passes defensed

Cassel isn't having a lot of balls batted away by the defender. He's had 10 passes defensed which is about 9.4 percent of his throws. Again, that's in the middle of the league.

This falls in line with the idea that the Chiefs want to protect the football and not make risky throws.

***

These stats I think help illustrate what the Chiefs are asking Cassel to do and that's, first of all, protect the football. Look at how the Chiefs are built: Strong running game and a strong defense. It's not designed around a quarterback who can fling it 50 yards down field.

Would that be nice? Sure. But it's not critical for the Chiefs at this point.

I do think Matt Cassel has to be better. I really do. This isn't meant to be a list of excuses for the guy. But I think this helps show what the Chiefs philosophy is with the quarterback.

Thoughts?