Factoid
Time will tell if the Eagles made the correct decision in dealing Donovan McNabb – particularly to a division rival. Kevin Kolb has started only two games as a pro.
But one area where I’m sure Kolb will be better than McNabb is accuracy on shorter throws. McNabb has been a solid quarterback and has won a lot of games. They’ve been to five NFC Championship games with him. But he’s never been a particularly accurate passer.
For his career, McNabb has completed only 59 percent. Only once in his career has he reached the 62 percent mark.
Kolb, on the other hand, completed almost 65 percent in his limited action last year (and I’ll grant that one of those games was against a really bad Kansas City defense, which hardly should even count). But Kolb makes quick decisions and gets the ball out of his hands.
At worst, I think Kolb will be similar to McNabb as a passer.
Below are the completion percentage figures for the last three years. McNabb should be in his prime here; early 30s and with a good receiving corps. Nevertheless, he’s still been below-average in terms of completion percentage.
COMPLETION PERCENTAGE, 2007-2009
Quarterbacks with at least 500 attempts:
Att Comp Pct
810 551 68.0 Chad Pennington
1801 1216 67.5 Drew Brees
1154 776 67.2 Tom Brady
1641 1101 67.1 Peyton Manning
1252 839 67.0 Matt Schaub
1588 1062 66.9 Brett Favre
1562 1021 65.4 Kurt Warner
703 453 64.4 Jeff Garcia
1105 711 64.3 Aaron Rodgers
1379 882 64.0 Ben Roethlisberger
1424 906 63.6 Philip Rivers
1520 958 63.0 Tony Romo
1170 730 62.4 Carson Palmer
1430 892 62.4 Jason Campbell
1376 857 62.3 David Garrard
681 423 62.1 Jon Kitna
1638 1017 62.1 Jay Cutler
927 572 61.7 Joe Flacco
522 322 61.7 Shaun Hill
826 506 61.3 Trent Edwards
677 412 60.9 Vince Young
1487 903 60.7 Donovan McNabb
1086 651 59.9 Kyle Orton
1259 754 59.9 Matt Hasselbeck
885 528 59.7 Matt Ryan
1517 903 59.5 Eli Manning
1016 602 59.3 Matt Cassel
821 479 58.3 Jake Delhomme
599 348 58.1 Ryan Fitzpatrick
713 411 57.6 Kerry Collins
1065 612 57.5 Marc Bulger
565 319 56.5 Alex Smith
992 521 52.5 Derek Anderson
680 354 52.1 JaMarcus Russell
—Ian Allan
- Comments [4]
Readers' Comments
Add a Comment
Already a registered user? Please sign in to add comments.
To add comments, you must become a registered user of our site. To register, please click here.
Posted by DAVID DIGREGORIO | Apr. 18 at 11:52 PM
A strength of McNabb is the deep pass. If the skins don't upgrade their O line, McNabb will have a lot of trouble being effective. It's tough throwing when you on your back. however, with or without an O line upgrade, Kolb will be a more productive fantasy player this year than McNabb.
Posted by IAN ALLAN | Apr. 19 at 02:10 AM
I like Kolb a lot. I think he'll be better than McNabb. But I also think the move to Washington will be good for McNabb. Mike Shanahan is maybe the best coach at taking care of his quarterback. He'll use lots of bootlegs and rollouts, as well as an improved running game, to stop McNabb from getting killed. I was looking at John Elway's numbers a few days ago. Elway was sacked 46 times in 14 games in the final season pre-Shanahan. In his first season with Shanahan, he was sacked 22 times in 16 games. Shanahan won't let McNabb get beat up.
Posted by DAVID DIGREGORIO | Apr. 19 at 09:11 AM
McNabb competed 60.3% of his passes last year. In the two games he played, Kolb completed 64.7% of the passes he threw. With all of the reps, that percent should only climb. Ron Jaworski broke down the tapes and found that 41% of McNabb's passing yards were yac. In Kolb's two starts, 52% of his passing yards came from yac. He hits the recievers in stride. With a guy like Jackson, a ten yard pass that he catches in stride can easily become a bomb. Big big year for Kolb, and his recievers. Kolb will be a must have player in challeng games.
Posted by IAN ALLAN | Apr. 19 at 12:59 PM
I have no problem with ranking Kolb as a top-10 quarterback. I'm still working on my board; I'm not sure where he'll wind up. But let's not put too much weight in his two games from last year. One of those was a home game against Kansas City, which had no pass rush and maybe the league's worst pass defense at the time. So not particularly impressive, in my opinion, that Kolb completed 70 percent of his passes in that game. In his other game, against New Orleans, he threw 3 interceptions.