MINI-CAMP

Q: Are you glad to be in Kansas City?

MATT CASSEL: “Very happy to be here. I am excited about everything that has gone on. I am excited about being here and I am excited about the coaching staff and everything going on. We are setting an environment and a foundation right now. We just have to start getting better.”

Q: How impatient did you become to be the starter of a football team?

CASSEL: “You sit around for a long time and you hope that your opportunity comes. For eight long years I was in that position where I was sitting there and everyone was saying, ‘look, you are an injury away,’ and that play just never came for some time. Then finally it did, it showed up. It was fulfilling for me to be able to step in and do something I have been working so hard for so long on and finally get in there and accomplish something.”

Q: Are you excited to have the opportunity to make this your team in Kansas City?

CASSEL: “I can’t even tell you the feelings, the emotions I have about it. I said all along that I wanted to be a starting quarterback in the NFL and to be able to have that opportunity here in Kansas City, I am even more excited about that.”

Q: Have you approached the last month any different than you did in New England the past couple years?

CASSEL: “Not at all. We just started workouts a few weeks ago and like I have always done, I just get in here, get going with football and work as hard as I can to put myself in the best physical and mental position going into the season.”

Q: Have you always approached football the same way?

CASSEL: “I have always approached it the same way and nothing will change. I had the great opportunity of learning from a guy like Tom Brady who is a profession in every sense of the word. He is a guy that I look up to and I still talk to on a weekly basis and somebody who really taught me, as a young quarterback, how to be a professional and how to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. He is a guy who never took it for granted and that is something I will take with me as I move on in my career.”

Q: Did you ever lose faith that this moment to be a starting quarterback would come?

CASSEL: “I’m not going to say that I wasn’t discouraged at times. You just keep working hard. I felt blessed to be on a team in the NFL because playing in the NFL because playing in the NFL is rare for a lot of people and to have that opportunity after not playing in college, I never took it for granted. I feel blessed and very lucky to have this opportunity now.”

Q: What is your initial reaction on the level of talent you see out there on the practice field?

CASSEL: “Everybody is out there getting better. We are a talented team and what I think makes great teams is playing together, being consistent and fundamentally sound on a day-to-day basis. If you are inconsistent in one area and you are not all on the same page then you are not going to have a good product on the field. If we can get together and start working now on putting the puzzle together, we can have a productive team and a very good team.”

Q: How challenging is it to come in and be a leader on this football team?

CASSEL: “You step into the role as a quarterback as the known leader. You have to show that first by going out there and demonstrating it in workouts and your day-to-day activity. You have to show everybody by example rather than what you say. As you earn their respect out there on the field through example and what you do, then I think you are able to use your voice a little bit more and have a lot to say when it comes to telling people what to do.”

Q: Why did you choose number seven?

CASSEL: “Six plus one (equals) seven.”

Q: What are your thoughts on Head Coach Todd Haley?

CASSEL: “I’m excited. Coach Haley has done a great job so far. I am excited to work with him. He is a guy who has come from a very similar system to what I came from with the Patriots. It’s exciting to work with him. He has worked with Kurt Warner and has obviously brought him along, not that Kurt Warner needed a lot, but it’s still fun to work with a guy who has been around a long time. He brings a lot of energy, he is young and energetic. It has been fun.”

Q: What is it like working with GM Scott Pioli?

CASSEL: “Well, I have a great relationship with Scott and he brings a lot to the table. He has already started to set an environment and a climate here that people will notice right away. We are going to be structured and have to go in there each and every day and this is a work environment. That is what he is trying to do.”