Kevin Kolb ready to take the reins in Arizona
Jul 29, 2011, 6:35 PM | Updated: 8:25 pm
OK, so maybe taking over as the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals will only be the second toughest thing Kevin Kolb has done recently.
An avid hunter, the newest Cardinal used to use a knife, rather than a gun, to take down his prey.
But, he said his days of hand-to-hand combat are over, as his responsibility is to the Cardinals, a team that gave up a former Pro-Bowl defensive back and a high draft choice to get him.
Introduced to the Arizona media for the first time as a Cardinal, the 26-year-old says he feels no added pressure.
“There’s always pressure to perform, and perform great,” he said. “I put that on myself, as a quarterback in the National Football League you better put that on yourself, and it’s going to be there.”
Kolb said there has been pressure in every situation he’s been thrown into, whether it was filling in for an injured Donovan McNabb in Philadelphia or seeing the same team trade McNabb, arguably the best QB in franchise history, to make room for an unproven signal caller.
Things did not go according to plan, though, as a Week 1 injury took Kolb out of the lineup. From there Michael Vick revived his career, and the player who was once thought to be the future of the Eagles found himself on the sidelines.
Knowing a trade was likely, Kolb said he viewed Arizona as a great landing spot.
“I just kind of always marked this one down as one of my favorites,” he said of Arizona. “Kept in the back of mind, it just so happened that when they had a need I had a need.”
Kolb spoke highly of the Cardinals coaching staff and, not surprisingly, about Pro-Bowl receiver Larry Fitzgerald.
It will be the new quarterback’s responsibility to get the ball into No. 11’s hands, something a quartet of quarterbacks failed to do with any kind of consistency last season.
So, it is not as if the bar for Kolb has been set pretty high. With a truncated off-season in which Kolb won’t even be able to practice with his new teammates until August 4th, though, he understands things will take some time.
“I’m going to jump in with both feet, go as hard as I can go, make sure I’m prepared,” he said. “I know I have some catching up to do, I’m not naive enough to not think that, and [I’ll] make sure I’m ready to go when the bell rings.”
