Fairmount CA

What. A. Game last week.

All of AA’s columnists have done a great job documenting the fantastic things we saw in that game: A.) The Chiefs sudden rise from the grave B.) Their utter trouncing of the dirtiest, most classless team in the league and C.) Said team’s laughably inept offensive performance.

Now, while point C in some ways detracts from points A and B, it is what I want to focus on, because it is the most important in the long term.

Although Cassel looked far from impressive in that game and the defense did a lot of the work for the Zombie Chiefs, after doing some research, I’ve become a much bigger fan of Zombie Cassel and his insatiable appetite for comeback brains. So much so, that it has made me feel a lot better about that trade that brought him here, especially because it makes the Carson Palmer trade look like a Jedi Ronin Secret Suicide attack.

Read my lips: the Raiders are doomed. Check out why after the break.

Look, I like Matt Cassel. He obviously been the most productive quarterback we’ve had since Trent Green’s prime years and as long as the running game is clicking, the Cassel-Bowe connection is one of the most dangerous in the league. He’s also one tough cookie and you can’t ask for much better leadership qualities.

Still, I think an objective assessment of him is one as a middle-of-the-road quarterback. He’s had chances to distinguish himself as a top 10 QB by putting the game on his back and winning late in games when the running game was suffering. In nearly all of these situations he hasn’t gotten it done. One important exception was his insane 4 TD, 138.9 passer rating performance against the Colts in Week 5 this year. However, even then, you have to take those stats with a grain of salt as they were made against what is arguably the worst team in the NFL.

Therefore, until he proves himself otherwise, I have no qualms about viewing him as the 15^th-or-so best quarterback in the league. And thus, I think he proves a good stick of measure for the quality of other quarterbacks in the league – in particular, the newest comer to the AFC West, Carson Palmer.

How do Cassel and Palmer, former teammates and roommates at USC, stack up?

First-overall-pick Palmer lit the league on fire in his first three years with 78 TDs and nearly 10,000 passing yards. In 2005, he had a Manning-like 101.1 passer rating for the season. Then, he was bedeviled by the traditionally poor Bengals management and injuries to his elbow and knee. A few years later, Cassel came off the bench in New England and threw for 21 TDs and (still) career-high 3,693 yards.

From this point, their careers have taken drastically different paths. As we all know, Cassel was traded to KC for a high second-rounder along with grizzled veteran LB Mike Vrabel. Palmer has now ended up on Cassel’s rival team for either two first-rounds or a first- and a second-round pick. And, if any more evidence is needed that Oakland is managed by a group of drunken teenagers, these numbers should finish it off.

Let’s just forget last game, for statistical purposes. Palmer apparently hadn’t even thrown to his Oakland receivers in pads before that game and never was planning on going into the game. So, I’ll give him a break for being put into an impossible situation.

But before last week, the Raiders’ savior, Carson Palmer, had thrown 57 interceptions in his previous 52 starts. Cassel had 41 INTs in his 65 total career starts and his stats going into the game were 8 TD 5 INT. Not great, but not that bad, considering how putrid the Chiefs offense was in the first two weeks of the season.

Furthermore, Cassels season passer rating going into the game (89.7) is higher than the rating Palmer has put up for the last four seasons, and is also higher than Palmer’s career passer rating.

Thus, if Cassel is a mediocre quarterback, then Palmer is decidedly a bad one. Cassel is also three years younger, and does not have anything closely resembling the injury history of glass-limbs Palmer.

Outisde of AA, I am also the designated Chiefs SuperFan for the ESPN Football Today podcast, and in an argument with the Raiders SuperFan, the best he could come up with in response to these statistics was that “The RAIDS have the leagues best RB.  He just needs to be respectable, so that you cant stack the box.” (-To which I responded of course that McFadden (currently injured) is not the league’s best RB, that honor belongs to a player on the Chiefs’ roster who is currently on IR.)

So, by all accounts, we should all be rejoicing that the Raiders have just bought themselves a “reasonable” quarterback in exchange for their entire future. In fact, even if Palmer plays pretty well, they’ve still screwed themselves for the medium-term.

Here is the best-case scenario for the Raiders: Palmer takes them to the playoffs and wins a couple of games this year. Their team isnt bad, but theyre not a Super Bowl team theyve proven that when theyve gone toe-to-toe with teams like the Patriots. So OK, maybe they make it to the AFC Championship and get brushed aside by New England or Baltimore. Then what? They have one year with basically no draft (not counting compensatory picks, their first pick will be in the 5^th round in 2012). Two full years with no 1st round pick, and by the end of that they have a quarterback who has a long history of injury and who will be 34 by the end of the 2013 regular season.

They then have no quality young players, no quarterback, no future. Maybe theyve gotten themselves a Lombardi trophy during that stint, but I would bet the farm they dont. They have no cap room and hardly any draft picks for the next two years meaning right now is the best they are going to be talent-wise, as they essentially have no ammunition to grab talent for the next two years. Is this a Super Bowl team?

No.

Wrap your head around this fact: Due to trades and the supplemental draft, three of their top four picks in the next draft are quarterbacks currently on the roster – 1^st pick Carson Palmer, 3^rd (currently suspended total project QB) Terrelle Pryor, 4^th Jason Campbell, who is currently in a contract year and on IR. It’s inconceivable that Campbell, who has starting quality talent, would resign or be resigned by Oakland last year.

Thus, they’ve essentially thrown a year’s-worth of draft picks to fill a position with a bad quarterback.

All of this not only makes the controversial Cassel trade look a whole hell of a lot smarter, but we can all take solace in the fact that  as the Chiefs continue to toughen up through a rough season, the Raiders will be joining the Broncos as a team to beat up on in division games for the next several years.

There are still a lot of hard games to play in this season, but imagine this: If the Chiefs can upset the suddenly accident-prone Chargers at home this week and can roll the awful Dolphins and Broncos in subsequent weeks, we will be 6-3. After that, the schedule gets very difficult, but it’s still very realistic to finish 8-8 or 9-7. By then, Kansas City, the team with the lowest cap number in the NFL, will have a corps of young players who have learned how to play through adversity and will know what to do to get those tough, close wins.

We’ll have plenty of money to spend, and we’ll be getting back Charles, Moeaki and Berry. Due to their self-inflicted wounds, the Raiders, by weakening themselves, have made the AFC West a division primed to be dominated by what will be a scary Chiefs team in 2012.

I, for one, can’t wait.

Tags: 2012 season, Carson Palmer, Chiefs, matt cassel, raiders, trades, utter stupidity

HARRISBURG – One might think the fight to open the fields and forests of Pennsylvania to Sunday hunting would pit guns against religion.

After all, the ban on shooting on the Sabbath has its roots in the blue laws of the 19th century.

Instead, it is shaping up to be a face-off between arguably the two most powerful lobbies in the state: sportsmen and farmers.

The National Rifle Association and other firearms and hunting groups are making a big push this fall for legislation to overturn a 138-year-old ban on Sunday hunting, arguing that they should have the right to hunt seven days a week during hunting seasons.

They cite economic advantages for expanding hunting, pointing to a new study completed by a legislative commission that predicts that adding days will create thousands of new jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue.

But those involved in the states number-one industry – agriculture – and recreation groups say they simply want a day of peace in the countryside each week.

Farmers say they want to preserve the one day when they dont have to worry about trespassers, while hikers, bikers, and horseback riders want to continue enjoying public land on Sundays without the fear of getting shot.

The legislation – still being debated in a House committee – would not open all Sundays to hunting. Rather, it calls for the Pennsylvania Game Commission – which voted, 4-3, last spring to support the bill – to determine which Sundays, in which hunting seasons, would be open to shooting.

For instance, the commission could designate Sunday hunting only during the peak two-week open deer season beginning at the end of November, or extend it to all Sundays from the start of the Canada goose-hunting seasons in September through the snow goose season that ends in April.

Thirty-nine states allow some form of hunting on Sundays, including New Jersey.

Still, the committee chairman and bill sponsor, Rep. John Evans (R., Erie), said he was not sure a bill will get voted out of committee.

Right now its pretty close – we have members who are on the fence, Evans said after a four-hour hearing on his bill Thursday.

Gov. Corbett said he wanted to review any legislation before determining whether or not he would support it.

Im not going to weigh in on it right now, Corbett said Thursday. I want to see the bill.

Friction between the warring factions spilled over during a contentious hearing Thursday before the House Game and Fisheries Committee.

Joel Rotz, the chief lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, testified that proponents have failed to make the case that the interests of all Pennsylvanians are better served by removing the current restrictions.

We are hearing a growing voice among them who wish to be outdoors on Sunday enjoying a broad range of activities, Rotz said. They say that one day a week should be preserved for their pleasure without the concern of encountering hunters or hearing gunfire.

One after another, pro-Sunday hunting lawmakers assailed the farm bureau and its position, contending it was not representing the will of its 52,000 members. One, Rep. Mark Gergely (R., Allegheny), mocked the bureaus defense of the rights of leaf peepers, also known as foliage watchers.

Rotz responded that a majority of the bureaus membership has consistently voted against Sunday hunting.

The committee members hammered representatives of the hiking and horseback-riding communities for not having any proof that outdoors enthusiasts or their animals had been shot at or killed by hunters.

Curt Ashenfelter, executive director of the Keystone Trails Association, said the Sunday prohibition makes the outdoors available for hikers, bird-watchers, mountain bikers, and others without the perception they are in danger.

But Carl Roe, executive director of the Game Commission, which has seen a decline in hunting licenses in recent years, said that expanded hunting will help generate revenue and give young people more opportunities to get involved in the sport.

Theres no doubt in our mind that including Sunday hunting will certainly have a positive impact on the hunting industry, Roe told the committee.

Hunting is big business in Pennsylvania, which issues more than 900,000 licenses to shoot deer, waterfowl, elk, bear, and other animals each year, among the highest number in the nation.

In 2010, hunting generated roughly $1.7 billion in retail spending, a figure that would grow by 27 percent with Sunday hunting, according to the study prepared for the Legislative Finance and Budget Commission.