Rivers McCown of Football Outsiders doesn't have much faith in Tyler Palko to make much of a difference for the Kansas City Chiefs against the New England Patriots on Monday Night Football. He does, however, believe that there are enough weak links on the Pats side that it's at least possible that Matt Cassel's back-up can do some damage enough to keep the Chiefs in it.
"One concrete reason to be optimistic about Palko in this game is that he's going up against a New England Patriots pass defense that has been mediocre this year. In fact, aside from last week's five-sack, two-interception outburst against the New York Jets, the Patriots have been downright miserable against the pass."
Not only has the pass rush been suspect, but the secondary has been completely decimated compared to last year's team.
"Their secondary has been ravaged with injuries, and with the releases of Brandon Meriweather and James Sanders before the season, the Patriots have been competing with castoffs like Antwaun Molden and James Ihedigbo. Even those five sacks only raised New England's adjusted sack rate to 22nd in the NFL, and they are dead last according to our numbers at defending passes to No. 1 receivers, such as, say, Dwayne Bowe in this game."
Palko, of course, is not likely to do much at all since the Kurt Warner type of stories are so rare in the NFL compared to a back-up quarterback simply playing like, well, a back-up. Still it's nice to have hope.