{"id":11081,"date":"2014-08-24T12:55:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T16:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/?p=11081"},"modified":"2014-08-24T12:55:34","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T16:55:34","slug":"vikings-not-ready-to-name-qb-bills-looking-for-backups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/2014\/08\/24\/vikings-not-ready-to-name-qb-bills-looking-for-backups\/","title":{"rendered":"Vikings not ready to name QB, Bills looking for backups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-11082\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/mattcassel.jpg\" alt=\"mattcassel\" width=\"594\" height=\"414\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/mattcassel.jpg 594w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/files\/2014\/08\/mattcassel-300x209.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>While Matt Cassel is believed to be pulling away in the competition for the starting quarterback role in Minnesota, head coach Mike Zimmer is not ready to name a starter.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222221;\">Cassel finished Saturday&#8217;s third preseason game 9-of-17 \u00a0for 152 yards with\u00a0<\/span>one touchdown<span style=\"color: #222221;\">\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>an interception while playing into the third quarter.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_10_3_1_1408898526076_2015\" style=\"color: #222221;\">&#8220;I thought Matt played well,&#8221; Zimmer said. &#8220;He led them down a 97-yard drive to start the ball game, made a great (touchdown) throw to Cordarrelle (Patterson) and got hit and smacked a couple times but stood in there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While Zimmer is not ready to publicly call Cassel his starter it is clear. First round pick Teddy Bridgewater was kept off the field for much of the night as Cassel played late into the 30-12 win over Kansas City.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_10_3_1_1408898526076_2015\" style=\"color: #222221;\">&#8220;I thought Matt played well,&#8221; Zimmer said. &#8220;He led them down a 97-yard drive to start the ball game, made a great (touchdown) throw to Cordarrelle (Patterson) and got hit and smacked a couple times but stood in there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bills looking to add depth behind Manuel<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Buffalo Bills have a talented roster at many of the skill positions, well except quarterback. Starter EJ Manuel was again booed by the home team fans and should Manuel go down there is no clear No. 2 on the Bills roster.<\/p>\n<p>Dennis Dixon \u00a0entered as the No. 2 on Saturday night but he fills in a revolving door\u00a0at No. 2 on the depth chart with Jeff Tuel and Thad Lewis.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_10_3_1_1408898539929_2088\" style=\"color: #222221;\">&#8220;Our conversations are always, &#8216;Hey, if we can better our football team, whatever we have to do, we will,'&#8221; Marrone said. &#8220;We wouldn&#8217;t be doing right to ourselves, the team, the fans, if we didn&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While Matt Cassel is believed to be pulling away in the competition for the starting quarterback role in Minnesota, head coach Mike Zimmer is not ready to name a starter. Cassel finished Saturday&#8217;s third preseason game 9-of-17 \u00a0for 152 yards with\u00a0one touchdown\u00a0and\u00a0an interception while playing into the third quarter. &#8220;I thought Matt played well,&#8221; Zimmer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[131,426,33,152,216],"coauthors":[4],"class_list":{"0":"post-11081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-buffalo-bills","9":"tag-front","10":"tag-matt-cassel","11":"tag-minnesota-vikings","12":"tag-nfl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11083,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11081\/revisions\/11083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11081"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}