Kevin Kolb Should Start Over Michael Vick Anyways

Like some of you out there who are trying to kick yourself in the nuts on a Monday morning, I drafted Kevin Kolb in the later rounds of my fantasy football draft out of sheer desperation.

Then I watched him complete 5-of-10 attempts for a woeful 24 yards passing, become brutalized by Clay Matthews and eat a pile of turf. Now he’s concussed, and as the Eagles lost their season opener against the Green Bay Packers, it looked as though Kevin Kolb lost his starting job to Michael Vick.

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Out of nowhere, it seems as if Andy Reid and the Eagles are giving us an internal battle that inevitably happens every year – a quarterback controversy. And this one could shift the NFL betting angles on Philadelphia for the rest of the 2010 NFL season.

I’m not going to defend Kolb. He looked lousy. He looked terrible. He looked like he didn’t belong under center for the Eagles. But as a great man once said in defense of sharing his ice cream, “You chose fruit, you live with fruit!” and that’s directed at Coach Reid.

The choice to kill the Donavan McNabb era in Philadelphia and start the Kevin Kolb one belongs to Andy Reid. He was tired of the McNabb era, it wasn’t going anywhere, the team needed a dramatic change and the city wanted a new hero to look to.

Kolb is just 25-years old and proved last year that he can produce the raw numbers (300+ yards per game in two starts during 2009), and so what if he had a pathetic and injury filled outing against the Packers?

It’s almost ironic that Kolb’s first game came against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. In 2008, as I wrote in my Eagles-Packers preview, Rodgers faced a similar situation in Green Bay when he had to take up the reigns left by Brett Favre. In his first two games, Rodgers won, throwing 178 and 328 passing yards and totaling 5 touchdowns. And still the Packers went 6-10 SU during the regular season.

Regardless of how piss poor he played on Sunday, Kolb deserves another chance and while Vick is a nice fill in for the time being, he’s not a long or short term answer.

And here’s why: if Vick proved anything to the NFL online betting community on Sunday, it’s that he still relies on his feet to do the most damage. While the former Atlanta Falcon completed 16-of-24 for 175 yards and a passing score, he also ran 11 times for 103 yards. In pressure situations, Vick would run…and he ran damn well.

But that’s not how Andy Reid and the pass-first Eagles play football. That’s not how you take advantage of the skill sets provided by Jeremy Maclin underneath or DeSean Jackson. The Eagles know this, and so do their NLF betting backers.

The other issue with Vick is that he’s 30-years old. He’s one or two injuries away from losing that marquee speed that defines him on the ground, and when that’s gone I don’t know if he has the natural talent of a pocket passer to be a great quarterback in the league anymore.

It goes without saying that Vick was worth the $5.5 million the Eagles gave him this summer, but it’s not like they’re rushing out to extend Vick’s contract for five more years. He’s not a pocket passer. Never has been, and never will. If anything, he’ll be a good stand in for Wildcat and option packages to keep offenses off balance.

Still, it’s up to Kolb has to be the short term fix and the long term solution at the same time, especially in a place like Philadelphia where the stakes are intense and the pressure is never ending. Like Rodgers, Kolb needs to take his lumps and learn from his mistakes. He deserves that opportunity.

If Vick becomes the next Kurt Warner type and resurrects his career and leads the Eagles to the Super Bowl, then you’re taking a chance that Kolb could end up just as destitute as Matt Leinart. Vick is not Warner, and the fact that he hasn’t been able to improve his skills as a quarterback since 2006 has to be a strict reminder for everyone trying to brew this quarterback controversy in to something it shouldn’t be.

Given the chance that the Eagles know what they’re doing, they’ll reinsert Kevin Kolb in to the starting lineup should the league deem his concussion to be minor. You can argue that it was dumb to let McNabb go, but what’s done is done. The worst thing to do is jeopardize your future by benching Kolb, ruining his mental focus and creating self doubt within the future of the franchise.

If the Eagles decide to replace Kolb, they’ll do it through the draft in the next couple years. But Vick can’t and won’t be the answer to all the problems in Philadelphia. Should he start in Week 2 NFL betting when the Eagles play Detroit as -3.0 road favorites, he’ll be creating more problems for the team than they realize.

Bet on Monday Night Football here where the Ravens tangle with the Jets, and the Chiefs try to upset the Chargers!