SNF: Second Chances for Kevin Kolb, 49ers

On the season, he is averaging only 8.3 yards per completion and 5.0 yards per pass after 45 passes, and he has also taken 4 sacks.  It is one of the great lies among coaches that quarterbacks who avoid mistakes are preferred.  In actuality, history shows that it is the ones who produce yards and points that keep playing (if you avoid mistakes also, all the better).  If you simply avoid mistakes though, by checking down and stalling an offense, you are not long for this league.

So how soon will we know if Kolb has a future?  I think fairly quickly, as in this season, if he plays a few more games as a starter.  I looked at all quarterbacks who threw 200+ passes for the first time at age 25 or 26, to see how they performed in their first opportunities.  Among guys who were more than 1 standard deviation worse than league average in ANYA (adjusted net yards per attempt), only Phil Simms and Steve Young appear as guys who later turned it around.  Simms was a true rookie playing on a very bad Giants team, and Young played for the dreadful Yuck-aneers in 1986.  If we go up from there, and look at guys who were below average, we see another Buccaneer victim, Vinny Testaverde (also a true rookie), Matt Hasselbeck, and Rich Gannon as the guys who played the worst as first time starters and later had success in the league.

Kolb has advantages that those guys did not, mainly that he is playing with a good offensive unit on a team that has been successful recently.  Marc Bulger, Chad Pennington, Vince Ferragamo, Scott Mitchell, Greg Landry, Philip Rivers, Mark Rypien, Dave Krieg and Aaron Rodgers all stepped in for teams that were already playoff contenders, and put up above average passing numbers right away.  Those are the guys that Kolb will be graded against this year.  Kolb’s story isn’t written yet (he’s still thrown only 45 passes this year), but he better have a good chapter tonight, or he may lose many of his remaining readers.

For San Francisco, I am not sure if the Kolb news is a good thing or bad thing.  This team hasn’t exactly handled the favorite’s role well.  Under Singletary, the 49ers are 11-2-1 against the spread as an underdog, but 4-7-1 when favored by less than a touchdown.  They have played up to the perceived level of their competition so far in 2010, playing the Saints and Falcons tough in close losses as underdogs, while getting destroyed against Seattle and Kansas City when favored.    Maybe Singletary has convinced them they are the disrespected underdog, despite the line switching dramatically with the news of Vick to Kolb.   Lord knows they should have no reason to feel overconfident, and if they don’t show up well in this game, I think we really need to start questioning this coaching staff’s ability to get players prepared.