Kolb must play, or he'll waste away

Kevin Kolb Must Play For The Eagles Now

Kevin Kolb has been wasting away on the sidelines of a mediocre football team. The time is now...or, actually, the time was last year, the 2009 season, when the other young Eagles players were coming into their own while he, a veteran by comparison, watched from afar.

If there is one thing we have learned over the past ten years, it is that the Eagles under Reid will be competitive each year. They have even, in recent seasons, shown an ability to learn from mistakes and change their approach in order to adapt to the league. Playing rookies like Maclan and McCoy, in addition to D-JACC, has proven a valuable, effective approach (who knew?) even if it was brought on out of necessity.

The only remaining blind spot for the Eagles braintrust is the QB position, which has remained stagnant and redundant in its inefficiencies and incompetencies -- while perhaps impressive in its statistical accomplishments -- for more than a decade.

There are plenty of ironies inherent in the Eagles "offensive" situation that have been dissected for years, most notably that they run an offense that is based on QB accuracy and WR proficiency, yet for years had not obtained the proper personnel for either position. Or, more accurately, have not implemented the proper personnel.

The greatest irony of all is that they actually do have the perfect QB available to them to run this offense -- and he's standing on the sidelines every week, just wasting away.

Kolb is still a young man, a young QB. But he is as good as he will ever be without starting every week, and has learned as much from watching as anyone can (especially watching McNabb, which can no longer be very helpful). As time takes its toll, his body and motivation will begin to erode, so he will only get worse from this point forward. So it is imperative that the Eagles give him a chance now.

Don't we already know what McNabb can and cannot do? Wouldn't it be nice to see something -- anything -- different from the same old thing?

(I love the "argument" that starting Kolb will drive Eagles fans away because we'll watch a mediocre team for a year...I mean, we're Philly fans...even with the recent successes, we KNOW how to watch a mediocre team, right? If there's one thing we've proven, its that we can do that with the best of them...and keep coming back for more every year.)

As fans, let's face it -- we're not getting any younger. But if we hope to see the Lombardi on Broad street before we all head underground, or even retire to warmer climes, we need the QB position to do just that.

And do it now.