Really?
REALLY!?
So, in essence, the Bills decided to re-sign Ryan Fitzpatrick's uglier step-brother. I'm sorry, but if this isn't a #becauseitsbuffalo type of signing, I don't know what is.
Kevin Kolb was awful with the Cards. You wanna tell me about how his offensive line was terrible? Fine. But…I got news for you, Kurt Warner did pretty damn well behind an OL that had Mike Gandy (Former Bills Wall of Fame nominee) as his LT in 2009. In fact, when Kolb came there in 2011 and was sacked 30 times in just 9 games, he had three of the same OL starting that Kurt Warner had in 2009.
Last year, Kolb was sacked once every 6.7 pass attempts while John Skelton went down once every 13 pass attempts. So, don't place all the blame on the OL. It could be your typical Flutie/Johnson debate of making the OL better or worse, which if memory serves me, can make you spontaneously combust when the question of whether a good QB or a good OL makes pass protection work. Kolb also had arguably the best WR in the game catching his passes, yet, he played like hot garbage for most of his time in Zona. He completed less than 60% of his passes last season and against probably the worst defense in Bills history, he threw for a measly 128 yards.
Maybe my football memory remembers too many wretched things, but that Bills/Cards game was awful offensively. As I saw the 25 or so punts float in the air with the greatest of ease, I remember feeling that the losing team would be the one with the crappier looking QB…and Arizona lost because they had Kevin Kolb..Yet, here he is..possibly starting for the Bills.
Look, I understand the POV of someone who likes this move. It is a veteran guy who could possibly start if a rookie QB isn't quite ready. You can even throw in the rhetoric about how he had a terrible OL and a bad running game. I also understand how people really want to believe Marrone and company are really changing the culture of the Bills and any move they make this offseason will be greeted as if they are on the cutting edge of change. It is what we call a honeymoon period for the new coaching staff. It is the same period that the last five coaches since Levy retired went through during their first offseason.
However, as I wrote last week, I'm not there yet because I want to be an asshole because of their bullshit. In other words, I'm playing hard to get.
I'm also not a fan who is going to act like sheep just because we have a few new shepherds in town. I'm not someone who is going to follow the crowd, mainly because I've seen too many instances of this franchise failing the fan base in the past. You wanna believe? That is fine and I respect that because it is better than the alternative of believing the Bills are doomed to fail. Plus, we are only like 2 months into this new coaching staff's reign.
However, the organization will never get the benefit of the doubt from me until they turn it around on the field…and signing a guy who was a crap sandwich in Arizona just doesn't make me jump for joy.
It just bites me in the ass because he's Kevin Kolb and he's coming from a franchise that has almost been as big of a laughing stock as Buffalo. He is Arizona's modern day version of Rob Johnson when it comes to hope, salary, compensation and being unproven when they got him, only to then get burned in the ass. Is that who you want to be starting on Sundays? Plus, I wanna see what these incentives are for his contract and what his base salary is. If the base salary is something like 4-5 million, that could have went to other pressing needs besides Leodis McKelvin.
I just don't get the point of signing another veteran QB who we all know is only going to keep the seat warm for a rookie incumbent. When you look at the numbers, Jackson and Kolb are pretty much the same over their careers.
Kolb
+3 TD/INT ratio.
Rating of 79.8.
153 yards passing per game.
Jackson
+3 TD/INT Ratio
Rating of 77.7
139 Yards passing per game
I should mention that Jackson has appeared in 51 games while Kolb has played in 34. Jackson is 17-17 as a starter while Kolb is 9-12. However, Jackson did guide his team to the playoffs in 2008. The point is that Jackson was more than enough to throw in as a camp body with a rookie QB. Now we will probably have 3 guys duking it out for the starting job in which reps in training camp and preseason will be hard to come by, especially since you'll have the backups playing with a QB fighting to be the starter. It happened in 2010 when Trent Edwards got first team reps and Fitz/Brohm were throwing the ball to UB guys in Rochester. That is why you can't have too many guys fighting for the QB job. Two and that's it.
Again, I may be making a bigger deal of this than I should, and yes, I wish I could be like some of you who can forget about the past and just look at the Bills offseason as a prism of optimism… but Kevin Kolb? Just…why do the Bills always seem to sign crappy leftovers from other teams who were the laughing stock of that franchise?
Or better yet, why couldn't we go out and sign some of the bigger names who were out there to begin with? If they went out and signed a #2 WR or at least a LB who didn't lose their job last year, I'd be in a better place with signing Kolb. But since this free agency season has gone like a fart in church for me, I've become a bit disenchanted. It is embarrassing, man. It is embarrassing how the Bills needed to wine and dine this guy for two straight days as some reports said they gave "The full court press" to get him. Really? They had to take Kevin Kolb to Tempo and sell him for 48 straight hours? It's Kevin Kolb! Send him to Buffalo Wild Wings and give him 20 wings with a bucket of blue and a million dollar contract. I'm just so over feeling like we can only get my best friend's ex-wife's ex-girlfriend's ex-mother-in-law's sloppy seconds.
I now gotta tell fans in NYC that Kevin Kolb is fighting to be the starter? A guy who had to fight the immortal John Skelton off when they were having their epic training camp battles in Arizona? Ugh! Today, I got a text from my former roommate who is a giant Eagles fan and he was totally giving me shit about signing Kolb. This isn't the first time this has happened and will probably not be the last.
Just..I know rebuilding is suppose to suck, but does it really have to be this embarrassing?
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