Philadelphia Eagles Game Changing Offseason Moves: National media isn't wrong to doubt the Eagles

It just doesn’t happen that often.

I don’t think that’s a fair expectation. Rodgers was not as good as Favre was the year before. You can look at all the stats in the world, but he struggled late in games and situations where experience counts.It wasn’t until last year that he really came into his own. I have faith in Kolb, but I fully expect a dropoff in QB play this year, regardless of our talent. Maybe Kolb will hit more slant routes in time, but he will throw more INTs too. And probably make stupid throws that give us all heart attacks. Expecting more, IMO, is setting ourselves up to be disappointed and possibly resent Kolb for throwing INTs we don’t like. You say no one is saying he will be a demi-god but I only see Rodgers and, now, Young comparisons. Those are lofty expectations.
(By the way, the Young comparison really is a bit much since Young had already proven himself by playing extensively for two seasons prior to that trade no? The Niners weren’t exactly taking a gamble on someone with only a couple games of experience. He even took them to the NFC Champ game before that trade was made if I’m not mistaken.)

I can’t think of any groomed QBs on a good team who came in and fell flat on his face, but I also never argued that would happen to Kolb either (not mis-representing words and such). I simply argued that expecting him to a Pro Bowler right away is silly.

[I just thought of Marc Bulger. He came in to a talented team and played really well actually. He did, however, throw just as many INTs as TDs in his first full year. Ultimately, Bulger has to be considered unsuccessful. He had a few years with some pretty numbers on a good team, but he never approached Warner in any meaningful way and he couldn’t help the team when the talent around him dwindled. He played well for sure, but his career hasn’t turned out very Steve Young-like.]
 
I think rather than looking simply at groomed QBs with a loaded offense from the get-go we have to consider groomed QBs as a whole. Good QBs can overcome bad situations, so it isn’t unfair to look further. Do all groomed QBs turn out well? Do they all have successful (for their situation) first years? I don’t know that that’s the case. Would we say that of Jason Campbell? We certainly wouldn’t say that of Brady Quinn. Chris Simms sat and “learned” for about two years and it didn’t seem to help him much. These were guys with talent coming out of school too.

I would ask what you expect of Leinart. Yes he struggled early, but he’s now had time to sit and watch and learn from a future Hall of Famer. He has talent, enough weapons to be successful and is on a team that made the playoffs last year. His situation is fairly similar to Kolb’s, though not identical. Do you expect both of them to have similar years?

When you say Kolb will be at least as good as McNabb was last year what do you mean? TD:INT ratio? 11 wins? Completion percentage?

For my part I expect a slightly higher completion percentage, a noticeably lower TD:INT ratio (though I have faith it will stay in the black), some really asinine throws to go with some pretty passes and fewer wins. All in all I expect it will be a frustrating, yet encouraging year. I think we will be a bubble team and our playoff hopes won’t be decided until late in the season, but I think missing them this year is entirely reasonable to expect as I think Kolb will struggle in places where game experience would help.

I just don’t understand why there seem to be so many who refuse to recognize that there is a real possibility that we will not be all that good this year. Yes we have an explosive offense, but there are enough questions that expecting success blindly seems strange. Center is a question. CB is a question. FS is a question. LB is technically a question, though it looks much better now than it did a few months go. RB is a question. And yes, I think QB is technically a question.