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FOXBORO - Matt Cassel, ever gracious, faced the masses who called for his head only a few short days ago, and chose to understate what could have been a heaping helping of "I told you so."

"I've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time," the Patriots' backup quarterback said Sunday after he replaced an injured Tom Brady in the first quarter and led his team to a 17-10 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in the regular-season opener.

"To be out there and get this win and have it be a real team victory, because the defense and special teams, and everybody played well to have it be a team win and do it on the field felt really spectacular," said the fourth-year veteran from Southern Cal.

Cassel endured more than his share of slings and arrows during an 0-4 preseason in which he struggled to move the team in his opportunities to lead them. But Sunday, with the Patriots' worst-case scenario fully in effect, Cassel rose to the occasion in a manner that reminded many of Brady's own ascension to the position in place of the injured Drew Bledsoe in 2001.

"I think he's taken a lot of fire, especially in this preseason," offensive tackle Matt Light said of Brady's understudy. "I felt like his job as a backup quarterback is to understand everything we do on offense and be able to step in there and perform at a high level. That's what's expected of him and that's what he did." "Tom is our leader," added center Dan Koppen, "but we have to play with what we've got out there. You can't control a lot of things that happen and you can only really control what you do every play. We just need to move on and get the job done."

When Brady was hit by safety Bernard Pollard while completing a 28-yard pass to Randy Moss - a pass that was fumbled away, as befitting the ultimate horror of the situation - it was clear quickly that the ninth-year veteran wasn't going to jump up and run back to the huddle, as he had done so many times before.

"Since I've been here and been around Tom, he's always popped back up," Cassel said. "I didn't know what was going to go on. I just buckled my chinstrap and if that was what was going to be, then that's what it was going to be."

After his first two handoffs to Sammy Morris from the precarious position of his own 2-yard line netted a loss of a yard, Cassel turned the tables by firing a 51-yard pass to Randy Moss along the right sideline, right in front of the Patriots' bench.

"It was a play-action pass," Cassel said. "We had run a few balls and we were backed up. Randy made a great move to get on top of the guy and I just tried to put it in the vicinity. He did a great job coming down with the ball."

"I cut my route off because they were in the vicinity where I was suppose to break to catch the ball," Moss said. "It was just an adjustment that I made and hopefully the quarterback saw the adjustment. Like I said, we were all on the same page and we got out of there."

Cassel went on to lead the Patriots 98 yards to a score, on a 10-yard pass to Moss. The veteran wide receiver said his team pulled together as a team amid the adversity and put forth the sort of effort it needed to survive the loss of their marquee quarterback.

"I think our running game stepped up big today," he said of the Patriots' 126 yards on the ground. "Laurence (Maroney), Sammy (Morris), Heath Evans, LaMont Jordan and the offensive line did a hell of a job opening up holes and letting the backs find a way to go. It was a good game even though there were bumps in the road, but every team has that.

"A lot of people are really spoiled from last year by just being able to see our offense move up and down the field," he said. "It's not going to be like that every week. Some weeks you are going to move the ball and some weeks you are going to struggle. Today was just a heads-up victory from all sides, special teams, defense and offense we pulled together."

"I have to rely on those guys and those guys rallied around me," said Cassel (13-18, 152 yards, one TD). "I felt their support, both defensively and offensively, and you just have to go out there and focus on your job and continue to execute from one series to the next."