Kevin Kolb Still Has Future as Arizona Cardinals Quarterback

As the Arizona Cardinals continue to spiral into a pit of ineptitude week after week, unsurprisingly the quarterback of the team is bearing the brunt of the criticism.

Kevin Kolb entered the season with the hopes of being the missing piece—the player who would be able to pick the team off the ground and return it to competitiveness. He started the season with a win and the respectable stat line of 309 yards passing, a 66.7 percent completion rate and two touchdowns with no interceptions.

Since that game he has regressed. He’s had a completion percentage over 60 percent only once and had more touchdowns than picks just twice. He’s become a sack magnet, shown poor decision-making at times and has had passes deflected on a regular basis.

He’s not Derek Anderson, but he is far from the quarterback that Cardinals fans had hoped for.

It is not time to give up on Kevin Kolb yet, though.

He’s still not played a full season as a starting quarterback, hasn’t had the offensive weapons necessary to succeed and is playing behind one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL. He’s been sacked the second-most of any quarterback.

Some of the sacks are his fault; many are on the offensive line. The repeated pressure has clearly shaken his confidence as a quarterback, and as a result, his pocket presence has suffered.

The Cardinals receivers have struggled as well.

Larry Fitzgerald is the only Cardinal receiver in the top 40 in the NFL in receiving yards. Early Doucet is ranked 48th, Jeff King 126th, Todd Heap 143rd and Andre Roberts 149th.

They are struggling to separate from coverage, and Cardinals receivers rank eighth for dropped passes; however, Kolb has also either failed to deliver an accurate ball to a wide-open receiver or failed to find a wide-open receiver on multiple occasions.

The results could be different if the Cardinals had re-signed Steve Breaston or at least found a suitable replacement for him.

Kevin Kolb still has the potential to be a decent quarterback at the NFL level, but he cannot do it on his own.

The coaching and front office need to ensure that there is adequate talent around him and a defense that is capable of holding a lead.

The Cardinals, as bad as they are, will probably not win the suck for Luck pool, so Cardinals fans are stuck with Kolb...for better or worse.

Let’s hope that it’s better, because it can’t get much worse.