It wasn’t much of a choice for the Cardinals to tab Kevin Kolb as their starting quarterback for the fourth straight game on Thursday night against the Rams.
Mike Florio reports that John Skelton’s sprained ankle has not healed enough for him to get back onto the field for game action yet, leaving Kolb as the unquestioned man to lead the offense in search of its fifth straight win. According to Florio, Skelton is very close to being ready, however, and that will force Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt to name a starter based on criteria other than who’s the healthiest.
Whisenhunt addressed that during an interview on The Dan Patrick Show and didn’t give any idea about who he would choose to be the starting quarterback once Skelton is healthy enough to be a consideration. He did say that he’s not a subscriber to the theory of players being unable to lose their starting jobs because of injuries.
“I don’t know about that policy. I hear people talking about that all the time. I think what we’ve always done is we base our decisions on what player gives us the best chance to win,” Whisenhunt said, via SportsRadioInterviews.com “I think we’ve been pretty consistent with that. And I guess, over the last 13 games, it’s worked out pretty well for us.”
There’s no real reason for Whisenhunt to paint himself into a corner in terms of a starting quarterback at this point. If Kolb should have a disaster in St. Louis on Thursday, then it’s easy to go back to Skelton if so desired because there’s never been any promise in terms of which player is in the lineup.
If Kolb and the Cardinals win again, though, we’d expect to see him remain under center against the Bills in 10 days. Benching a quarterback off of five straight wins isn’t something that happens all that often and Skelton was hardly established enough to say that the team’s play with Kolb shouldn’t allow the status quo to remain in place.