The Vikings know who their starting quarterback is going to be in 2015 after watching Teddy Bridgewater make 12 starts as a rookie, but they aren’t willing to commit to bringing Matt Cassel back as their backup.
Cassel, whose 2014 ended early because of a foot injury, is signed for the 2015 season at a salary of $4.15 million and he’ll count $4.75 million against the cap. General Manager Rick Spielman said that nothing definitive has been decided about bringing Cassel back to the team, although he had nothing negative to say about the work Cassel’s done for the team.
“We went through our process, we evaluated all of our players,” Spielman said, via FOXSportsNorth.com “We looked at everything from what they bring to our football team, in the locker room, off the field, what they bring to us on the field. But we also have to look at where they’re at from a standpoint of their contract, where we’re at from a cap standpoint. We have a lot of unknowns right now from that standpoint. We assess all our guys. Matt’s done a great job. Came in and has won some games when he had to play. He’s a great locker-room guy. Matt has a lot of value to us.”
With Bridgewater on a cheap rookie deal, keeping Cassel at his current price doesn’t sound like a bad idea for the Vikings as long as he’s healthy. He knows the offense and the other backup options expected to be available in free agency aren’t a particularly appealing lot over someone who is already on the roster.
If the Vikings decide to go the other way, Cassel shouldn’t find interest in his services hard to come by although any shot at a starting job would likely be in a similar placeholder capacity to the one he was filling for the Vikings before his injury.