Matt Cassel will start next week

The Minnesota Vikings always looked overmatched heading into today’s game against the New England Patriots, but they also came in with a better record than the Super Bowl contenders after blowing out the St. Louis Rams in Week 1, whereas the Pats blew their opener to the rival Miami Dolphins. The Patriots, however, tightened up against the run, as they held down Matt Asiata and took full advantage of Matt Kalil’s surprising struggles with likely breakout star Chandler Jones. More importantly, they shredded the Vikings low-quality secondary while flexing their defensive backfield’s might on former QB Matt Cassel, who threw four interceptions in a woeful performance.

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The Viking Age

Cassel was so bad that, of course, the Teddy Bridgewater chants started, and it’s hard to see Bridgewater performing worse than Cassel did. The Vikings have a prudent GM-HC combination in Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer, and these two care more than anything about managing their rookie QB and aiding his development, especially mentally. While I would start Bridgewater, I can understand why the Vikings would prefer to slowly ease him into the NFL due to their investment in him.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Master Tesfatsion, Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer unsurprisingly quieted all of the “Bridgewater!” chants by confirming that there is no QB controversy at all and that Matt Cassel will start against the New Orleans Saints next week. While the Saints are 0-2, their talented pass defense did step up this week against a considerably easier matchup in Brian Hoyer and a Jordan Cameron-less passing attack.