Bills officially sign QB Kevin Kolb

[Kelly the Dog]

That's not quite the case. He was on the Packers directly after college(1994). He was competing against Favre, Brunell & Detmer....and didn't make the cut. He was then out of football. In 1997 he got a tryout for the Bears but an injury(spider bite of all things) prevented him from attending. He was finally signed by the Rams in 1998.

 

He certainly could be called a journeyman.....but his situation was quite unique for a QB. He didn't bounce around the league as a typical journeyman does.....he basically kept being rejected by NFL teams. When he finally got signed, he became MVP in 2 seasons.....and it was only injury that caused him to be moved after that.

 

I personally wouldn't call him a journeyman as once he was given a legitimate opportunity, he showed himself throughout his career to be of elite calibre......but I understand how some would squeeze him into the journeyman category.

 

Fair enough, especially because I didn't realize that he never made it to the Bears tryout, I thought he had one. Although, if he missed it because of a bite, they would have rescheduled it if they thought he was anything other than, say, a "journeyman.". Still, in my book, being undrafted, getting a tryout, getting cut, going to the Arena League for a couple years, getting signed, being sent to a developmental league like the NFLE and then making the roster as a back-up is the definition of being a journeyman.

 

I would not, however, call him "a journeyman" when he went to the Cardinals, which I guess makes this a semantic argument. He wasn't good on the Giants, however, and he did get beat out (twice I think) by an absolutely horrible Matt Leinart. His resurrection on the Cardinals was his second remarkable feat. I love the guy as a player, and he's a great man to boot (although my good friend is a good friend of his and says he has an enormous ego).

[xsoldier54]

This from Buffalo Rumblings "Also, Marrone's offense will be a lot more like Reid's WCO that Kolb showed some success in then it will be like Whisenhunt's offense that almost killed him. Whisenhunt was asking him to be Roethlisberger without the benefit of Pittsburgh's offensive line and Roethlisbergers size and insane ability to avoid sacks. Kolb was never suited for that offense, it was a recipe for disaster. But he is suited for a short drop, quick timed WCO, which is what I'm assuming Marrone has planned." This is pretty much what I said in an earlier post, but it is good to see that someone else agrees.

[Fan in Chicago]

 

 

As far as I can tell and as far as the Bills go, they're stil back at zero, as this is the equivalent of re-signing Fitz.

 

I really don't see much difference between Fitz, Kolb and Tjackson in terms of what they add to the team. Maybe accuracy differences but in the end I doubt any of them makes much difference to the W/L column. And here is my rub, which I expressed earlier when we were discussing Flynn also - I don't see why we are thrashing in all possible directions to seemingly fill our Qb hole. How does adding Kolb help the team long term ? This is against the general Nix philosophy of building for the long term. On the one hand, we keep hearing BPA for the draft but in FA we 'reach' for QBs.

I am VERY curious to see the structure of the deal but if it is front-end loaded, it would be a huge mistake cos it was money due to which we let Levitre go. Money and future cap issues which have seemingly stopped us from going after our strong needs such as LB. But here we seem to have no problems throwing money at this second tier QB who may or may not be a measurable upgrade over TJackson.

 

While I will wait to see information and curious about where the rest of the off-season takes us, at this point we seem to be flailing around in the personnel department.

[Kelly the Dog]

I really don't see much difference between Fitz, Kolb and Tjackson in terms of what they add to the team. Maybe accuracy differences but in the end I doubt any of them makes much difference to the W/L column. And here is my rub, which I expressed earlier when we were discussing Flynn also - I don't see why we are thrashing in all possible directions to seemingly fill our Qb hole. How does adding Kolb help the team long term ? This is against the general Nix philosophy of building for the long term. On the one hand, we keep hearing BPA for the draft but in FA we 'reach' for QBs.

I am VERY curious to see the structure of the deal but if it is front-end loaded, it would be a huge mistake cos it was money due to which we let Levitre go. Money and future cap issues which have seemingly stopped us from going after our strong needs such as LB. But here we seem to have no problems throwing money at this second tier QB who may or may not be a measurable upgrade over TJackson.

 

While I will wait to see information and curious about where the rest of the off-season takes us, at this point we seem to be flailing around in the personnel department.

He's helping the team because an NFL team needs two quarterbacks who can play and not one. He's helping because the guy the Bills like may need a season or a half of a season to be ready to play, if, say, EJ Manuel, is more raw than a guy like Barkley. He's helping the team even if he is only slightly better than TJax, because that helps the development of the young players and the defense even if he is not getting us to the playoffs. He helps the team in getting, say, Wayward Bey or one of the remaining WRs in free agency or a final cut.

 

His money will not be big or prohibitive, probably similar to what Fitz got and was offered.

Edited March 31, 2013 by Kelly the Dog

[Dibs]

......(although my good friend is a good friend of his and says he has an enormous ego).

 

That's a little disappointing to hear.....and unfortunately very believable.

 

Mind you, without such a big ego....such a great belief in oneself....he likely never would have achieved all that he did in the NFL, and simply given up after the first few knock backs.

[Kelly the Dog]

That's a little disappointing to hear.....and unfortunately very believable.

 

Mind you, without such a big ego....such a great belief in oneself....he likely never would have achieved all that he did in the NFL, and simply given up after the first few knock backs.

Right. And my friend knows him well, and says he's a great, great guy... just has an enormous ego like a lot of these guys.

[TallskiWallski83]

I really don't see much difference between Fitz, Kolb and Tjackson in terms of what they add to the team. Maybe accuracy differences but in the end I doubt any of them makes much difference to the W/L column. And here is my rub, which I expressed earlier when we were discussing Flynn also - I don't see why we are thrashing in all possible directions to seemingly fill our Qb hole. How does adding Kolb help the team long term ? This is against the general Nix philosophy of building for the long term. On the one hand, we keep hearing BPA for the draft but in FA we 'reach' for QBs.

I am VERY curious to see the structure of the deal but if it is front-end loaded, it would be a huge mistake cos it was money due to which we let Levitre go. Money and future cap issues which have seemingly stopped us from going after our strong needs such as LB. But here we seem to have no problems throwing money at this second tier QB who may or may not be a measurable upgrade over TJackson.

 

While I will wait to see information and curious about where the rest of the off-season takes us, at this point we seem to be flailing around in the personnel department.

 

He is an upgrade of Tarvaris Jackson because he has been trained in the west coast offense by Andy Reid. I dont think anyone at 1 Bills Drive is going to be hailing Kolb as our franchise guy anytime soon, but he is a servicable player who gives us flexability in the upcoming draft. Already short on picks, the bills now have the option of taking BPA at #8 or trading down, possibly with a team who is willing to fork over a 1st round pick in 2014.

 

This would be my ideal scenario. The QB prospects in next years class are franchise guys that will be winning superbowls in the their NFL careers, you cant say that about this years class, having two 1st rounders next year would give us a shot at anyone of these guys. By trading down, we could select BPA in the late teens/early twentys, and wait until the 3rd or 4th round to draft a rookie QB or choose not to draft one at all ( fine by me).

 

Im ok with whatever the Bills decide to do except draft a QB in the first round THIS YEAR. We have been spinning our wheels in mediocrity and committing ourselves to a 1st round pick QB this year is a risky proposition that will likely put us back in this same spot 3-4 years from now. Im ok with any QB after the first round as long as we remain open minded and willing to draft another QB next year in the 1st round. I dont think it is wise to commit ourselves to any QB we draft in '13 beyond his rookie season.

Edited March 31, 2013 by TallskiWallski83

[Buff_bills4ever]

Woo... We signed Kevin Kolb.... Party.... Yeah.... Zzz.....

[gobillsinytown]

Right. And my friend knows him well, and says he's a great, great guy... just has an enormous ego like a lot of these guys.

 

All of them have big egos. Without one, there's no way they would even be on a leauge roster. I'm not sure how many QB's are in the NFL, but let's assume 3 per team. That's roughly 96 guys out of how many hundreds of college level QB's that want to play in the NFL? To take the kind of punishment that a starting QB has to take requires a certain sense of invincibility.

[Leelee Phoenix]

If Kolb's deal is half that.....with incentive bonuses, it will be a shrewd move as it means we basically kept Fitz(in the guise of Kolb) but at a much lesser cap number.

But, the Bills are still eating $10M of cap with Fitz.

 

There's no shrewdness here.

[Simon]

He helps the team in getting, say, Wayward Bey

[Kelly the Dog]

All of them have big egos. Without one, there's no way they would even be on a leauge roster. I'm not sure how many QB's are in the NFL, but let's assume 3 per team. That's roughly 96 guys out of how many hundreds of college level QB's that want to play in the NFL? To take the kind of punishment that a starting QB has to take requires a certain sense of invincibility.

Absolutely. I don't consider just "having a big ego" to be automatically a bad thing, or have a bad connotation. And the guys in pro sports that fans think don't have huge egos are really only good at portraying themselves as not having big egos. They all think they are great and they better, or I don't want anything to do with them.

 

That said, there are differences. Warner, for example, apparently thinks he's great at everything, and loves to trash talk and tell everyone how he will kill them at hoops and anything else. But it's all in good fun, and again, from what I have heard, he's a terrific guy, just loves himself.

[WhitewalkerInPhilly]

The Bills wanted to restructure/keep Fitz (per Nix recorded call).

 

Fitz didn't want to restructure.

 

Fitz left.

 

Everyone was jumping for joy.

 

The Bills were left with a Fitz-sized hole in their roster.

 

Kolb fills that hole.

 

He will be a marginal improvement over Fitz.

 

Yet here we are jumping for joy again.

 

As far as I can tell and as far as the Bills go, they're stil back at zero, as this is the equivalent of re-signing Fitz.

 

To me, it's getting back to square one, only with it costing less cap space for next year and a QB who is a better fit for the new system. I'm not jumping for joy, but I'm happy to have options again.

 

But, the Bills are still eating $10M of cap with Fitz.

 

There's no shrewdness here.

 

We still are, but Fitz was never going to restructure, and that $10 mil is way too big a hit to take for someone who is competing for a backup spot. While we have yet to see all the numbers for Kolb's contract, I suspect that his cap number is going to half of that, and have all its guaranteed money up front. That way, between the June 1st designation on Fitz's release and the expected cap increase next year we get a quality alternative to a rookie as starter without the continued cap hit from Fitz's monster contract. If I'm right, Kolb's impact on next year's cap will be minimal.

[Kelly the Dog]

One thing this does, although it is pure conjecture on my part, is make me believe that the Bills are considering guys like Geno, Nassib and Manuel, who I would prefer, over Barkley and Glennon. Kolb has a good arm and can run and throw on the run. The Bills spent a lot of time with him and I'm convinced that is what they want in a QB. Nassib isn't the best runner but he is good at throwing on the run and I think that's what we're going to see a lot of.

 

I'm not a huge Kolb fan, but he has talent, a good arm, and can run. Perhaps in an offense suited to him, he can be a decent player until we get a franchise guy.

[Bufcomments]

This also frees us up to drafting a guy who can make Stevie happy. C. Patterson. This guy has talent a can take a short pass and take it to the house on any play.

 

I could see an opening day roster on offense that looks like this. Remember we are running an up- tempo (almost like K-Gun) offense

 

WR Stevie , Patterson,B. Smith

TE Chandler

RB Spiller

QB Kolb

LT Glenn

LG Snow

C Wood

RG Urbik

RT Harrison

 

There is firepower on the field with Spiller, Stevie, Patterson, and I will toss in a healthy Fred Jackson.

 

Maybe Kolb is or isnt. Maybe T. Jackson will surprise us. But you can score points with this amount of talent we have.

 

The Defense is where the real problem of this team lies.

Edited March 31, 2013 by Bufcomments

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Fair enough, especially because I didn't realize that he never made it to the Bears tryout, I thought he had one. Although, if he missed it because of a bite, they would have rescheduled it if they thought he was anything other than, say, a "journeyman.". Still, in my book, being undrafted, getting a tryout, getting cut, going to the Arena League for a couple years, getting signed, being sent to a developmental league like the NFLE and then making the roster as a back-up is the definition of being a journeyman.

 

I would not, however, call him "a journeyman" when he went to the Cardinals, which I guess makes this a semantic argument. He wasn't good on the Giants, however, and he did get beat out (twice I think) by an absolutely horrible Matt Leinart. His resurrection on the Cardinals was his second remarkable feat. I love the guy as a player, and he's a great man to boot (although my good friend is a good friend of his and says he has an enormous ego).

 

The only spider bite I know of that would keep one from missing a football tryout, would be a Brown Recluse, which Warner was in the right part of the country to encounter. Those can be nasty, make big painful sores that cause necrosis and take months to heal, which could put him outside the window for joining the team.

 

By the time Warner went to the Giants, he was struggling from a hand injury that hadn't been allowed adequate recovery time to heal fully and interfered with his throwing motion, as well as just physically beat to hell from several years of Mad Martz and a horrible OL (Cutler can empathize). Warner eventually found a glove he liked and resurrected his grip and his throwing motion, which allowed him to resurrect his career.

 

I'm not sure he got "beat out" by Leinart so much as going to the Cards with the assumption that he was only good for backup duty at that point and Leinart was gonna be The Man. So it was Leinart's job to lose and he got enough rope to hang himself.

 

One man's ego is another man's pride in himself and confidence. Though I imagine going to a Superbowl and QB'ing a winning team would tend to be ego-inflating. Warner didn't have a rep as an egomaniac in St Louis. (Martz did) The one whose ego always seemed out-of-whack was Warner's wife Brenda, who for a while, made a hobby of pronouncing on radio shows about coach's conspiracies to yank her husband as starter not because he wasn't getting it done, but because he proclaims as a Christian. She seems to have chillaxed with age, however.

[tennesseeboy]

kolb? i cvan't see a new coach betting the farm on this guy. I suspect he's coming in to hold the franchise in light of a Gino Smith signing and give the Bills some breathing room in case Smith needs time. If Kolb were going to be something special he would have shown it by now.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

I would liken Kolb to Alex Smith, who cost KC a pretty penny and probably does not have much greater upside than Kolb. I don't see how anyone can be very upset with this move; at this point we do not know how much guaranteed money is in the contract. At any rate, it's not your money, it's RW's , so just relax.

 

Kolb like Alex Smith? Watch much football? Alex Smith was the number 3 rated QB at the end of last year. Kolb couldn't hold a candle to Smith on his best day. ROFL comparing the two.

 

I think the point that's being suggested but not being made is that Alex Smith cost KC a 2nd rounder plus a conditional mid-round pick and that Matt Flynn would cost a team a draft pick or two. One thing to like about this transaction is that it didn't cost the Bills a draft pick, for a guy that was an expensive acquisition just two years ago.

 

NFL.com's take on the move.

 

Good of NFL.com's Marc Sessler to directly attribute ESPN's Adam Schefter for breaking the story. Too bad most media outlets including ESPN don't hold themselves to such a journalistic ethic.

 

Yet here we are jumping for joy again.

 

As far as I can tell and as far as the Bills go, they're stil back at zero, as this is the equivalent of re-signing Fitz.

 

1) Who's jumping for joy?

 

2) The Bills had a hole to fill and they filled it (veteran backup/mentor for the rookie QB). Isn't that a good thing?

 

If you look in that video, it says Kolb had been sacked 23 times in the last 3 games, including 6 against the Bills that day. That's just about 8 sacks per game for three straight games.

 

Yikes. Any QB would be "injury-prone" (my least favorite football phrase) behind that.

 

As I'm becoming aware via reading about Kolb in the last 12 hours, he does hold the ball too long and so while his O-line was bad, he certainly didn't help them out in the way many good quarterbacks do. That said, Adam Caplan and others are commenting about how the Bills will be using a quick timing passing game. Hopefully Kolb can transistion.

 

Kolb was cut by the Cards 2 weeks ago. He could have easily been picked up by a number of teams. Why did it take so long for the Bills to come to the conclusion he would be a viable option? Either the Bills haven't prepared themselves for multiple possibilities (i.e. the possibility of the Cards cutting Kolb and how they would respond), don't have a general plan to improve their QB position, or just don't plain know what they want.

 

This is really nitpicking. The market has been very slow-moving. There are still numerous respectable players dangling on the market right now. The quarterback market was unstable and some pieces had to fall into place. The Bills and Kolb ended up together. That it took a few weeks is needlessly negative.

[Hater]

I rather Tarvaris Jackson start than Kolb,

[Hapless Bills Fan]

We still are, but Fitz was never going to restructure, and that $10 mil is way too big a hit to take for someone who is competing for a backup spot.

 

I don't understand this post. Because we cut Fitz, we are taking that big $10 million hit - $3 this year, $7 next.

If Fitz had stayed without restructure, we would have paid him $7.75 million or something like that ($3 million bonus, $4.25 million-ish salary, plus a workout bonus). Which is high, but not $10 million.

 

The fact that Fitz signed 2 years/$3.25 million per year with the Titans, tells me that he was indeed willing to restructure but what the Bills were offering him for 2013/2014 was lower salary, incentives they would be able to make it tough for him to reach, and no guaranteed money.

 

I'm waiting with interest for the details of Kolb's contract. If the Bills are guaranteeing him more than $3 million this year, I doan geddit. Unless after watching all the film there is, they feel Kolb could be a better WCO-specific QB than Fitz. Which is possibly true. But a true WCO is a timing offense, dependent on crisp precise route-running. Tell me again, which of our WR are known for crisp precise route-running? It ain't Stevie.