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A few weeks ago I was on 610 Sports with Danny Parkins and he asked me which quarterback I thought the Kansas City Chiefs should bring back next year -- Matt Cassel or Kyle Orton. My answer was both of them. Why not stack the most important position in sports with as much talent as possible?
As it turns out, an Orton vs. Cassel training camp battle is indeed possible next year. Michael Lombardi of NFL.com reports that the Chiefs "will make an effort to sign [Orton] this offseason" and have him compete with Cassel next year.
Chiefs interim coach Romeo Crennel certainly sounded open to the possibility when asked a couple weeks ago about Orton's chances of sticking with the Chiefs beyond this season.
The question is whether Orton wants to return to KC. Reasons not to come back would be A.) more money elsewhere and/or B.) better opportunity elsewhere.
The Chiefs have the capability, as far as the salary cap is concerned, to throw a competitive offer at him. And it'll be interesting to see what kind of offers Orton has this offseason, and whether beating out Cassel in KC may be his best shot at a starting job.
So this tells us that this Week 17 game has a lot of importance. Orton will only play in three games for the Chiefs this year so every game on which you can evaluate him is an important one.