"Today is for a qualified apology. From me, from many of you, from all of us who spent much of the first few months of this Chiefs season bashing Matt Cassel.

The criticism was near unanimous. I called him "limp" and "frumpy." Many of you used more descriptive adjectives that can't be printed here. But in an otherwise mostly uneventful 31-13 Chiefs win over the Cardinals on Sunday, here is the takeaway:

Cassel isn't horrible, because a horrible NFL starting quarterback looks like Arizona's Derek Anderson.

You saw it, right?

This is a "qualified" apology because Cassel played plenty bad enough those first two weeks to warrant the criticism. But he's been much better since, and it's worth adjusting the narrative on him.

Cassel will never be a superstar. There are concerns about his reads, about locking onto his primary receiver, and about his (in)ability to lead the Chiefs from behind when necessary.

Those are all the things Cassel isn't, so it becomes easy to miss all the things he is. No full-time quarterback has thrown fewer interceptions, and entering the weekend, only Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Kyle Orton had lower interception percentages.

Since those first two awful games, Cassel has been statistically excellent five times, good twice, and just OK once. That's a compliment to Cassel and also to a coaching staff that's learned to make it work.

Highlights and praise of Manning and Brady and a select other few make it easy to forget that a lot of coaches would trade their clipboards for a quarterback who could consistently do what Cassel did on Sunday: complete 15 of 24 passes for 193 yards, two touchdowns, and no turnovers even without Tony Moeaki and Dexter McCluster.

One of those coaches is Arizona's Ken Whisenhunt. Anderson had another miserable day. Anderson's final numbers — 25 for 46, 295 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions — look more respectable than the actual performance.

On a final drive that mattered only to fantasy football players, Anderson completed nine of 14 passes for 92 yards and a touchdown, but before that, Anderson was the kind of awful that many in Kansas City still use to define Cassel.

Anderson missed open receivers, held on to the ball too long, and even pulled off a special brand of stinkitude when he took an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the third quarter that forced the Cardinals to punt instead of go for a short fourth down."