When it comes to evaluating players, and quarterbacks specifically, New England has seen skills that other teams have not. It did it with Tom Brady, a sixth-round pick, and it did it again with Matt Cassel, a seventh-round pick.

What drew the Patriots to Cassel was the information they got about how good the quarterback was.

“Matt has plenty of talent and he was very competitive with (Matt) Leinart and (Carson) Palmer at USC even though he ended up backing up both of those players,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said Wednesday. “As I understood it out there, it was very competitive between him and those other two Heisman trophy winners and working him out, you can see that with his throwing skills, his athletic ability, and in talking to him and spending time with him, his intelligence and understanding of football.”

So Cassel has the skills then, and he has refined them now.

“He’s come in here in three years and leading up to this season, worked hard to understand what we’re doing to work with Tom (Brady) and learn from Tom and pick up our offensive system and when he’s had an opportunity to play, even from his rookie year in that final game of the season when he played over three quarters against Miami when we lost at the end, that he continues to get better every time he’s on the field,” Belichick said. “I think that what he didn’t have was a lot of playing experience, but as he’s gained more of that, we’ve all seen his quarterback skills improve and he has plenty of playing skill to go with it.”