I don't know if everyone feels this way, but I'll start off by saying if Whis starts Kolb I'll lose a lot of faith in him as a coach. DA, Hall were enough to drop his #'s with me, but Kolb in my mind was excusable. It was a reach perhaps, but they got the best player they felt was available, and I don't fault them for that.
However, if they continue to play him in the regular season after his performances (I don't even care how he plays in the last preseason game) my confidence in Whis will plummet.
I've never said that about Whis and I love the dude, but if he does that then I'll really think he's clueless. I already have a notion that he's clueless about QB's, and that's fine, he can hire a specialist or a consultant to deal with his weaknesses, but if he plays Kolb I'll just think he's blind and either towing the company line (Graves) or so stubborn he'd rather us lose than play Skelton.
I think CKW ultimately gives two shakes about what we think in such a process as in this context it isn't important. It's more about what the players would think. I think he would lose some respect from the players. (in the long run I understand and agree with you about the fans, so imo you're obviously on the right track, but it's the players CKW needs to be concerned with first)
I think such an occurrence is patently absurd (but good straw man
), and don't think CKW is stupid enough to let that happen. Hell I don't think even Buddy Ryan could be that pig headed. I won't say give CKW some credit, because it's a decision that really isn't even close. Skelton has looked like a starter this preseason if it wasn't always pretty. Kolb has looked like an overmatched, soon to be cut 4th stringer at his worst, and no better than Leinart at his checkdown best during the most favorable circumstances (re: drive 1 of yesterday's game). We all tend to do this from time to time, think that the obvious correct course will be ignored.
But CKW picking Kolb is like a poor driver with the cheapest set of tires having the bright idea of driving through a tack factory after an earthquake. But hey we're Cardinal fans, and let alone live in a world with supreme idiocy, so we've all seen horrible decisions many times before. So our concern is legitimate.
I think CKW owes nothing to Jody Jackson and Adam Shefter. He owes it to the guys in the locker room and to the Bidwill's to make the right choice. Neither are helped by making comments to the media. He's said he'll play true to the process and let it play out. The more he does, the more they learn what type of QB each is and the team at large they have. Paying a guy more than he deserves doesn't help a team win on Sunday, neither does starting someone just because of what they paid him in the past. A guy might not bring much to the table, but if he's subtracting from the team, to hell with whatever money they gave him.
The last thing CKW wants is to insert himself into the process, and even fight himself later by making a comment and then doing something else that may be contrary to an earlier statement or hint. He wants to be disassociated from what transpires to not only make the best decision, but not allow anyone else to interject he influenced it and that caused an incorrect or unfair one. He doesn't want to push one player one way or another and add weight or take the pressure off as either way can hinder and alter the result. He wants an honest result. Good for the team. Good for him. Good for everyone.
Letting this play out will also tell us potentially how far Kolb might self-destruct himself, and if so, tells us whether or not he should even be on the team. Better to find out in the preseason then in a regular season meltdown. I like the process.
The Cards gave 7 million to put Kolb through this process to figure out for sure what he is. I think it was knowable before, but whatever, that doesn't matter now. They wanted to see, and now they are seeing it. Do they have a starter in Kolb? Do they even have a backup? We'll see, and the process will most likely tell us....if Kolb's play coupled with Kelley's statement hasn't cemented it already. Are we seeing everything bad of last year? Is it even more pronounced? Is he really progressing on the field? Or regressing?
Two games to go, and Kolb could turn it around and salvage something, or sink further and self-destruct. The more I think about that Kelly comment the more telling it is. He didn't say it in the context of the playoffs. Nor in the context of a regular season matchup. He felt it possible to say it from a preseason matchup. That's unheard of, at least by me. Called out in the preseason. Ouch.
Kolb defended it like he should have. But CKW has to take that into context overall and see if while it might have been worded wrongly and not got at the real specific issue, if there wasn't something very true underneath it all. I think there is. Many of us do. It's not the 'scared' part. That was a poor choice of words....by a football player.
It's the eyes and what Kolb's focus is while under pressure, how often he 'feels' it, and what exactly he does when he thinks he feels it. How his happy feet only get him into that situation and almost never out from it. Some QB's like Plummer seemed to get outside and make something happen. For Kolb, it almost never works out. What good is getting outside if your eyes are not down field, or he finally looks down field once outside? A QB needs to be looking down field and get outside and during that time decide whether or not to pull the trigger....not just start that process after getting outside or closer to the end of getting outside.
Any defense that faces Kolb in the future will be feeling as giddy as a major league baseball player who gets to bat against a pitcher with a 36.00 ERA, can't throw 85mph, has no curveball or off speed stuff, isn't a knuckler.... and the game is in Colorado.
Nothing in the preseason is a departure from what Kolb did last season, it's just more and worse of the same problems from last year, minus the concussion. They are going to be licking their chops. Pin their ears back. Ready to get some confidence boost for themselves. They smell blood. Every defense right now that has to face Kolb this season is thinking.... prove it Kolb. Because I ain't believing it until I see it.
I think he's fighting for a roster spot imo. Paying him in March has nothing to do with him being on the roster in September. It's his play or lack thereof that entirely determines where he is in September. A guy who is getting worse than how bad he was last year coupled with all the injury issues imo is a major factor. Again the final 53 won't just be the final 53 from our camp, but includes certain cuts from other teams as well. The best available 53 includes people that aren't in camp.
I don't see why QB is off limits to this given how he's played, and how he might and then in rear view possibly did play. I've seen enough to get to this point. But there's still two weeks to maybe salvage something. Or sink further. I don't know how it will go. I can only say which way it's trending, how the mindset of the defenders going against him will only toughen, and realize how he's played since being here as a guide. It doesn't bode well for Kolb. I can't expect a different result.
Being fine with paying him as a backup back before camp, doesn't necessarily equate to being a reason to keep him on the team after camp. Two decisions separated by many months, a camp, five preseason games, and everything good or bad in-between.
If they really feel they have to keep Kolb, then they keep him. But no way they start him. Keeping? Definite possibility. Probably will, unless he continues self-destructing. Starting him over Skelton? No way.
I really, really, really, don't want him to self-destruct as badly as I see as very possible. It is possible people. He very easily may not have hit rock bottom yet. I see it as a possibility. Because of his play I see it with increasing possibility. It either will or won't play out like that. But nowhere do I see it not as a possibility.
At this point people have to realize, benching him isn't going to change a thing. If he needed time off to reset, that was the offseason, and here we are in the preseason and it's the same stuff from the get go, like it's simply one week after his previous debacle without skipping a beat. No defender is going to forget what Kelly said. None. With everything going against Kolb, he just added more to it.
Good luck Kolb. I don't wish ill will to you. Don't want you to self-destruct. Don't want to see you injured. Don't want to see you humiliated. Don't blame you for signing a contract that was put in front of you.
