One of the keys to the Eagles future will be how they work with young quarterback Kevin Kolb. 
They shouldn’t put all of the weight of the offense on his back from the outset. They must help and allow him to gain his confidence each game.
If they can have a semblance of a running game in place it will stop opposing defenses from feeling comfortable in employing every blitz in the book against him.
Defense coordinators will try to get to his confidence by sending a corner blitz from his blindside.¬† It’s very disorienting for a quarterback to get hit from the blindside and have no idea where the blitzer came from.
It’ll be interesting to see how much downfield throwing they do because you don’t want to force a young quarterback to hold the ball too long.
Most of time I expect Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg to allow Kolb to get the ball out of his hand as soon as possible.
Early in games, they’ll want him to establish his rhythm, so they’ll start with short throws.
I believe Kolb will sink or swim from how many interceptions he throws.  If he can throw the ball 35 times a game and throw one or at the most two interceptions, he could be a success.
He’s got a great group of receivers to work with so he couldn’t be stepping into a better situation.
3 headed monster w/ Shady, Weaver and Bell. (works wonders in Madden by the way). Plus Celek and a potentially healthy Ingram should be more than ideal saftey valves for Kolb. IF McNabb is traded. I still find no evidence suggesting he will be, other than media speculation.
The critical key is to accept that there’s a 96% chance that Kolb is NOT a franchise QB based on NFL QB STATS, HISTORY and EAGLES PAST DRAFT SELECTIONS. The more I think about it the worse things look.
At the outset I kind of agreed with a couple of people that Kolb might be ok as he started playing, but the reality is that he’ll probably peak while defenses would be trying to figure out the difference in the changes made and then he’ll sink like a rock. To think about it…the year McNabb was drafted is still viewed as one of the best QB drafts in the history of the NFL and NONE of those players, except McNabb, is a starter (some are out of the NFL) even though most of them had good to stellar numbers for a season or two or maybe three. Kolb is probably not better than any of those high pick drafted QBs, so to expect beyond McNabb performances is delusional.
I don’t know that Reid is really the one that’s interested in trading McNabb outside of his desire prove everybody wrong about Kolb, but clearly the front office is divided. Hopefully, the fact that trading McNabb is difficult is enough to derail whatever efforts are in place to move a franchise QB coming off his 2nd or possibly 3rd best season of his career. My guess is that McNabb won’t get traded and all of this hoopla is a setup for endless season media drama. I’d also wager that Roseman is behind many of the false reports that keep hitting the news lines from “anonymous” sources. The guy’s trying to showboat and he’s not ready for the big leagues.
Butch – Where did you get that 96? If you’re basing off of Eagles pass draft selections, for QBs drafted high, doesn’t that point to McNabb’s success? Reid’s track record on developing QBs is Farve and McNabb. I’m not saying I know what Kolb will do, or frankly that I like the guy. But with Bill Walsh calling Reid to draft the kid, combined with the time he’s had to learn the system from an insider’s perspective, with all the weapons… I don’t see how you can be pessimistic about Kolb. Sure, it’s an unknown, but through my (admittedly optimistic) eyes, all signs point to success for Kolb.
While there’s this rumored story that Bill Walsh said Kolb was good that’s as far as even the rumor goes. No one knows what the content of the conversation was and I’ve never before heard that Walsh pressed anyone into drafting Kolb. As far as we all know the conversation could have been:
BW:
“That kid Kolb from Houston looks pretty good”
AR:
“Ya, think?”
…and that’s it
Just as importantly there was either a fullback or a tight end from Stanford that Bill Walsh recommended to the 49ers (a team he actually was PAID to advise on football matters.) I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he sucked. Bill Walsh was an adviser to the 49ers for many years even after the Steve Young era and they haven’t had a franchise QB since. If you look at say the Atlanta Falcons (I’m not a fan at all) but just look at their QB situation over the roughly the same period of time as McNabb has been in Philly. They drafted Micheal Vick, Matt Schaub and Matt Ryan (all starting caliber QBs). The Eagles have McNabb and MAYBE Kolb. How many QBs have the Eagles drafted in 11 years that have never amounted to anything? …ALL of them except McNabb. You may try to throw in Jay Fiedler, but even that’s pretty weak when looking at Reid and Co.s history bringing in QBs.
Based on the types of interceptions Kolb throws (wreckless) and how wobbly his passes were looking past 11 yards it’s far more likely he’ll be equivalent to or less than Feeley over any length of time. Andy Reid was so sure Mike McMahon was going to be a winning QB and that dude was just straight up garbage. I refuse to buy into any line of logic that supports the idea that Andy Ried knows how to draft QBs. At other positions they tend to get mostly guys that are average to slightly above average, but there’s no question in my my mind that except for the fact that they got lucky with McNabb the entire last 11 years would have been just A LOT of painful QB play for fans to watch.
Schiller, can any of the guys you mentioned play defense??????
Butch, I agree with you assessment of Kolb. Unless reid runs the ball about half the time Kolb will not succeed
If they turn the team over to Kolb, with all the other changes going on with this team, it’s going to be a looooong year.
McNabb guided a very flawed team to 11 wins last year! We should roll with McNabb and Vick-same as last year. Trade Kolb for a 2nd this year and a 1st or 2nd next year.
Keep 5 and remember: just about every team picking 1-10 in the draft has serious QB issues. Why become one of them?
The only thing that makes sense is to turn the team over to Kolb. We have a team of young talent that needs to grow together.
Kolb looks to be the guy based on the way things are going. I don’t hate McNabb he is a good QB it is just TIME FOR A CHANGE.
Hopefully a switch to Kolb will make Andy return to a more balanced system. If we get a dependable running game we have so many weapons on this offense we should be very hard to stop.
I personally like the defensive makeover so far but that is with the anticipation of more moves and good draft choices and trades.
Time will tell, but if history repeats itself, Kolb needs to win and become a leader. If not, he’ll be in for a rough ride. All that he does depends also on coaching and the running game, not to mention we need defenseive improvements. This is a team sport, but QB’s take a lot of flack when it doesn’t go well. Good teams can become much better with a good QB who can bring leadership. Talent is a given, something that is expected. Leadership is something that can’t be taught. It’s a qualiy that is there or not.
Grow together? How lovely, but we need a veteran qb with a gun who can light it up and not throw picks. Of course a strong running game is mandatory. We’ve never had a ground threat RB under Reid. (Westbrook could break some long ones, but he did most of his damage through the air). Get an RB like A Peterson, chris Johnson or even Jamaal Charles and we’d be very dangerous. Start Kolb and you can expect “growing pains.” keep 5!!!
Indeed Paulman IS creepy – dude, do you not remember the 3 headed monster of Staley Buck and Westbrook? Has it been THAT long for you?
None of them commanded respect on the GROUND. Duce Staley? C’mon. But you’re right Kevin Kolb is Joe Montana.
Ok. So you’re concerned with ‘commanding respect on the ground’. Fine, but that season those three gained a lot of yards and touchdowns. That’s what I’m concerned with.
@paulman_is_creepy: nice handle.
G., I disagree with your assessment that Kolb “can throw the ball 35 times a game and throw one or at the most two interceptions, he could be a success.” That extends to 16-32 interceptions per season which would be considered far less than successful.
I WANT DARRYL CLARK IN THE SIXTH ROUND NOW