MIAMI – Get comfy.

Lean back. Put your feet up. Grab a pillow. And perhaps a beverage – in which case, you ought to lift it in honor of Matt Cassel, only the fifth player in NFL history to throw for more than 400 yards in back-to-back games.

Two of them – Dan Marino and Dan Fouts – are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Another, Phil Simms, was the MVP of Super Bowl XXI. The fourth is Billy Volek, a career backup.

Which is what it seemed Cassel was destined to be – assuming, that is, his career was going to extend beyond four seasons as Tom Brady’s understudy. Because there were more than a few pigskin pundits who, in drawing up their prospective Patriots roster at the end of training camp, did not include Cassel – leaving him off in favor of third-round draft choice Kevin O’Connell and Matt Gutierrez.

It could have been an uncomfortable situation, but Cassel said he wasn’t concerned.

“The feedback I got from the coaches was all positive,” he said Sunday after decimating the Dolphins by throwing for 415 yards and 3 touchdowns, completing 30 of 43 passes, with one interception. And, oh yeah, he also ran for a touchdown.

“A lot of people with an outsider’s perspective had a different opinion,” Cassel said, thinking back to last summer. “It’s funny to me that they were ready to cast me out, saying: ‘This guy’s not even going to make the team.’ But that’s part of football, part of overcoming adversities. That’s what sports are all about.”

Cassel is all about comfort.

Coming into this season, he hadn’t started a game since high school. But, after being thrust into the lineup when Brady went down for the season in the first quarter of the first game, Cassel has gotten better with every game as he has gotten more experienced. And gotten more comfortable.

He’s in a zone now – a comfort zone.

“I’ve become more comfortable,” he said, “as I play more. A lot of it has to do with the speed of the game. You can’t simulate game speed in practice. So, as much as you want to say you’re ready to go when you step on the field, the fact of the matter is that it takes you a little time to adjust to that game speed.

“Now that I’ve gotten a few games under my belt, I feel a lot more comfortable out there.”

He was making only his 10th career start on Sunday but Cassel looked calm, cool, collected – and comfortable. The Dolphins’ defensive backs, on the other hand, were sweating bullets, trying – unsuccessfully -- to keep Cassel from getting the ball to the likes Randy Moss and Wes Welker, who each had eight receptions.

 Moss, who set an NFL record last season by hauling in 23 TD passes from Brady (who also set a record by throwing for 50), caught three scoring passes and also made a spectacular, one-handed catch along the sidelines.

 “Matt’s getting into a comfort zone,” Moss said. “And, at the same time he’s getting in his, we’re getting in ours. He’s playin’ some ‘hellafied’ ball, and we’re stepping up behind him.”

 After sitting on the sidelines behind Brady, Cassel has stepped in and now has the New England offense clicking the way it did in last year’s record-setting season.

 “He’s just taking it all in stride,” said Pats wideout Jabar Gaffney, who was on the receiving end of five of Cassel’s passes, for 88 yards. “He’s played behind some great quarterbacks -- especially here, learning from the greatest. If you’re going to sit behind somebody, who would you rather sit behind?”

 Cassel won’t be sitting any more.

 Of course, it’s all but certain he won’t be in New England any more after this season, when the original contract he signed as a seventh-round draft choice out of Southern Cal – where he was backup to Heisman Trophy winners Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart – is up.

 Cassel’s going to be starting somewhere else in 2009, with a considerable raise in pay from his starting salary with the Pats. Not that he wants to talk about that. It’s one of the few things that, at the moment, makes him uncomfortable.

 “I don’t look ahead,” he said. “I don’t look to the future, because anything can happen.”

 He’s looking better every game. After throwing for 400 yards in a losing effort against the Jets – the loss wasn’t his fault; he rallied the Pats from a 24-6 deficit to a 24-24 tie, and then, after N.Y. regained the lead, he threw a last-second TD pass to Moss with one second left to send the game into overtime – Cassel racked up a career-high 415 yards against the Dolphins.

 “I did not know that,” he said, when told he’d become only the fifth QB in NFL history to throw for at least 400 yards in consecutive games. “That’s a pretty cool stat.”

 Could he name any of the other four?

 “No clue.”

 Told their names, he said: “That’s a pretty cool crew.”

 Cassel is developing rapidly into a pretty cool QB.

 “Matt works hard at what he does,” Pats coach Bill Belichick said. “He gets better every practice, every meeting. He understands things that went wrong and he corrects them. We usually don’t have that problem again. He very seldom repeats mistakes.

 “He makes good decisions. When things are covered, and the rush opens up, and he has a chance to advance the ball, he can step up there and make that decision. He’s made a lot of good decisions, and not just in the passing game, but in his pocket-presence, his ability to scramble and move the chains on some of those coverage situations where the defense has their backs turned to him.”

 Cassel bears watching at all times.

 “I’m just happy that we were able to win and continue to move forward offensively,” he said. “I think the production is starting to come around, and that’s a good thing for us.

 “Everybody has to work together. The receivers have to run good routes. The line has to block. The running backs have to do their job. When it all works together, it’s easy for me.”

 Comfortable, you might say.