New England May Place the Franchise Tag on Matt Cassel

There's no question Tom Brady's knee injury way back in week 1 was bad news for pretty much everybody involved with the New England Patriots. Well, everybody except for Matt Cassel, who is set to enter a new tax bracket this offseason.

After being somewhat of a surprise to make the team out of training camp -- he was awful in the preseason -- the fourth-year pro who hadn't started a football game since he was a senior in high school, took over the Patriots offense and helped guide them to an 11-5 record. Actually, there were a few games where he was nothing short of brilliant, throwing for 400 yards in back-to-back games in mid-November, and ending his season with eight touchdown passes to only one interception over the final four weeks of the season.

The beauty of it for Cassel is the fact he is now in the drivers seat as an unrestricted free agent. He's positioned himself to get, I'm guessing, a rather large offer from some desperate team in dire need of a quarterback -- like Detroit, for example -- or get slapped with the franchise tag in New England.

Either way, he's going to be financially set for life.

Here's where this is all going: Mike Lombardi, former NFL general manager and current contributor to National Football Post, is convinced the Patriots will make Cassel their franchise player this offseason.

"The Patriots are way too smart, and I've talked to people in the organization," said Lombardi. "They are going to franchise Matt Cassel. He's an asset, and they can control their ability to trade him if they franchise him."

That would earn Cassel somewhere in the neighborhood of $14 million dollars in 2009. Brady is set to earn $14.6 million.

As we already know, there have been reports -- conflicting reports, of course, but reports nonetheless -- that Brady's rehab is behind schedule. If he were to miss any part of the 2009 season, combined with the possibility of Cassel lining up under center in, oh, I don't know, San Francisco, that could leave the Patriots with quite a hole at the quarterback position. Unless, of course, you have a great deal of faith in Kevin O'Connell.

Placing the tag on Cassel would at least give the Patriots some options. They could simply keep him, investing a massive chunk of cap space to just one position, while getting some insurance in case Brady isn't ready to go at the start of the '09 season.

Or, they could control Cassel's new destination via trade, taking advantage of the draft picks that would surely come their way.

Of course, all of this ignores the most important question: how good is Matt Cassel, and is he ever going to be worth $14 million? Legitimate questions. Either way, 2008 could not have worked out any better for Cassel.

Then again, the Patriots could end this entire discussion by signing Cassel to a cap-friendly extension before he even hits the open market. I'm not sure why Cassel would agree to anything of the sort, seeing as how he's pretty much guaranteed to make a fortune.