Philadelphia Eagles Game Changing Offseason Moves: Analyzing the Kolb deal

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This week's game changing move gave Kevin Kolb possibly the best month of all time. In the course of the past 30 days Kolb has been named the starting quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, his second child was born, and yesterday he signed a one year contract extension that guaranteed him over $12 million.

The deal is one that seems to work pretty well for both sides. For Kolb, he gets huge money despite not yet really proving that he be a starting quarterback for an entire year. Plus, it still allows for Kolb to get a big long term payday when the NFL labor situation gets solved. As the situation stands now, a long term deal is nearly impossible as Kolb as his agent explained.

"It’s an interesting time – just a way for us to bridge the gap," Kolb said. "I want to be here long term, I think the Eagles want me to be here long term, but there’s just really no way to get it done right now, and this is a way for both sides to be happy, and I am very happy."

"It was much more complicated than normal," Kolb’s agent Jeff Nalley said. "I think if the current CBA rules weren’t in place, I think the goal would have been to do a long-term deal – on both sides. But the rules are what they are, so both sides did something that satisfied the need of both parties."

How the deal works for the Eagles after the jump.

The amount of guaranteed money Kolb gets in the deal is surprising, but it's peanuts compared to the kind of money he could command if he had a good year and hit the unrestricted free agent market next year. Proven starting QBs in their mid twenties just don't hit the open market. So the Eagles had to pony up to essentially buy him out of a year of unrestricted free agency. If Kolb has a good year next year, the Eagles will be able to exclusively negotiate a long term deal with him rather than having to compete on the open market or using the franchise tag.

However, if Kolb doesn't prove himself next year... the Eagles haven't plunked down $60 million on a 5 year deal. They have a chance to take a look at him for a year before they need to that. In all likelihood they probably would have done the long term deal this offseason, but the labor situation gives them a unique chance to avoid that huge commitment without seeing him get significant playing time.