In the heat of the battle on Friday night, Raiders defensive tackle Tommy Kelly came off the field and declared to his teammates regarding Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb, “That boy’s scared.”
Kelly possibly didn’t know that a sideline reporter would hear him. Kelly apparently didn’t care.
After the game ended, long past the point at which Kelly and Kolb had exited the preseason contest and with Kelly fully aware that his words would be heard by people who would repeat those words nationally, Kelly continued to call Kolb a coward.
“He is skittish. He is scared back there,” Kelly said, via the Associated Press. “Anytime anybody gets close to him he starts looking at the refs. As a defensive lineman you love a quarterback like that. He ain’t even trying to look at the routes no more. He is paying attention to us and you ain’t going to get nothing done like that.”
In Kolb’s defense, it was hard for him to look at the routes when on many of last night’s plays he was swarmed by defenders before he could lock on to his primary target.
Still, it wasn’t a very impressive showing, with three completion and three sacks, including a safety. Kolb also lost 10 yards on an obvious intentional grounding penalty that it took the replacement officials 17 minutes to call.
I may be exaggerating. A little.
Kelly apparently isn’t, and it doesn’t bode well for Kolb’s chances to win the starting job.