When Arizona Cardinals quarterback John Skelton went down with a sprained ankle in the fourth quarter of Sunday's Seahwaks game, things looked to be in Seattle's favor.
The Seahawks had just scored on a field goal to take a 16-13 lead, and the Arizona crowd booed as pricey replacement quarterback Kevin Kolb ran onto the field. Soon after, Kolb would made the crowd feel like they shouldn't have.
He led the Cardinals on a touchdown drive and with five minutes to score Seattle fell short. Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt took the risk of being aggressive with the quarterback who has been the butt of jokes among Cardinal fans. On the first play, Kolb went deep targeting Larry Fitzgerald. While the pass was incomplete, it gave Kolb confidence, according to his interview with KTAR in Phoenix and transcribed by Sports Radio Interviews.
"He asked me as I was warming up, ‘hey do you feel comfortable with this?' And I did because that was the last thing they were expecting and I wanted to be aggressive. Knew we would get an eight man box front probably and get a one-on-one opportunity. Unfortunately I missed him on that throw but I think it showed them we were going to be aggressive and we continued to do the same thing going down the field."
The Cardinals took the lead on an 11-play, 85-yard drive ending with a touchdown pass by Kolb to Andre Roberts. That said, the Seahawks did have a solid chance at winning the game. Seattle marched 76 yards and burned nearly all of the time off the clock to reach Arizona's 4-yard line. Quarterback Russell Wilson threw three straight incompletions to exhaust the Seahawks of downs, and Kolb only needed to kneel down once to end the game.
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