With the Eagles’ training camp set to begin Monday at Lehigh University, everyone seems to have climbed aboard the Kevin Kolb bandwagon.
Everybody seems to believe that the team’s new quarterback can get the job done, even though he has just two NFL starts to date.
Mike Copeland believed it before anybody else did.
Shortly after the Eagles spent a second-round draft pick on Kolb in 2007, Copeland, who coached him at Stephenville, Tex., High, told the Daily News’ Les Bowen the following: “I don’t think y’all got the No. 3 quarterback (in the draft). JaMarcus Russell (who went No. 1 overall that year, to Oakland) is a freak of nature, but Kevin -- you can mark my words -- 10 years from now, he’ll be much better thought of than Brady Quinn (who went No. 22, to Cleveland).”
I reminded Copeland of that on the phone Thursday, when I spoke with him for a story I’m doing about Kolb for the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
“I was right on that one, wasn’t I?” he asked, chuckling. “I think I will be.”
Sure looks it. Russell washed out with the Raiders, and is now in legal hot water. Quinn is trying to resuscitate his career in Denver.
Which leaves Kolb, and all the rosy predictions about him.
“Kevin’s got a great head on him,” Copeland said. “He’s got a great football mind, and a tremendous work ethic. He makes the people around him better than they are. I don’t know what it is, and I couldn’t describe it. But he’s got it.”
Again, there have been few dissenters. NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger, interviewed for one of the seven Kolb-related stories that ran in a 28-page camp preview in Friday’s editions of the Daily News, expressed the opinion that the Birds’ West Coast Offense will be more consistent with Kolb at the controls than it was with Donovan McNabb.
“What’s going to be different is, you’re going to see a lot more yards after the catch,” Baldinger said. “I think you’ll see an offense that doesn’t have as many three-and-outs. I think there’s going to be more rhythm to it.”
Time will tell, as it always does. But let the record show that Mike Copeland beat the rush to the bandwagon.
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kk it is time to shine
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