Matt Cassel Trade Is in Kansas City Chiefs' Best Interest

Following last season’s 2-14 debacle—largely fueled by the poor quarterback play of Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn—the Kansas City Chiefs set out to fix their issues under center.

Alex Smith was acquired in a trade with the San Francisco 49ers and Chase Daniel, formerly of the New Orleans Saints, was signed to a free-agent deal (via KansasCity.com).

While not necessarily the method that fans wanted this team to go about upgrading the position, this year’s college crop offers little in the way of a sure-fire franchise quarterback.

This forced the Chiefs to put off plans of investing a premium draft pick on a signal-caller—assuming new head coach Andy Reid and general manager John Dorsey were ever leaning that way—to fill their biggest void.

With Smith, Daniel and Ricky Stanzi all under contract for at least next year, figuring out what to do with Cassel becomes top priority. The Chiefs appear to be actively shopping him around in hopes to get something in return for their failed four-year project (via Pro Football Talk, per NFL Network).

The report also states Kansas City will release the quarterback as soon as today, should the team not find a suitor for his services.

Due $7.5 million in base salary in 2013, trading Cassel won’t come easy even if there is an interested partner. Though the Chiefs are in no position to haggle in this spot, releasing him should be their last resort, however.

The current Chiefs’ regime has no direct ties to Cassel, but it is always in any team’s best interest to see if there is a market for any player seemingly on his way out.

While any trade will almost certainly be attached to Cassel coming way down on his current salary, there are enough teams that are in need of a starting quarterback—or at the very least, competition at the position.

 

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