Kevin Kolb or John Skelton: The Gameplan

Well... Since we're in that dead zone of the offseason I figured I'd follow up on an article recently released on NFL.com. The article talked about what formations came up more often between Kevin Kolb and John Skelton.

We'll start with Kolb here. With him we saw less bunch formations and more spread/ quick releases. After all that is what he did with him time in Philadelphia. For some reason, Kolb lost his nerve in the pocket, compared to his time in Philadelphia where he had a full understanding of their schemes. Like noted in the article, Kolb failed to check the 2nd and 3rd read on the majority of plays, which lead to incoming pass-rushers, which either lead to a sack, or an errant pass for an Interception. With the spread and open backfield, he was allowed to see the coverage before the snap. The example noted in the article was the 75 yard TD to Early Doucet. From the start you could see that the Panthers shoved 6 men in the box. Snapping the ball Kolb saw the LB's coming through the gaps and saw Doucet wide open in the middle. The play resulted in a 75 yard catch and run for Early Doucet. In fact, both his 70 + yard TD's came out of the spread formation

With the return of Ryan Williams to the backfield, Kolb will be able to make quicker throws. More play action means more guessing from the Defense, which adds up to Kolb having more time to throw or less time which he likes. With an offseason he'll be able to follow through with his progressions instead of following one guy the whole time.

Now with Skelton we saw more bunch formations and deeper throws. His poise in the pocket is superior to a few QB's in the league (No I'm not going to say Kolb). One such notable play was his strike to Larry who made the catch, spun around and scored against the Niners. With his lack of game time, he's prone to falling for more complex defensive schemes, which he can learn against Ray Horton. What helped him was the Bunch Formation here. With Trips Right against the Cleveland Browns, Larry was running a flag route, Heap a slant Left, and Doucet a slant Right. On the play the defenders got jumbled together, leaving Fitz wide open between the Corners and Safeties.

In order to succeed this, they would have to establish the run game early, which would force the opposition into an 8 man front. Thus allowing the team to throw deep.

I won't get into whom I want to see succeed, because I think I've said it enough times.