TEMPE, Ariz. — Kevin Kolb says he “probably took a step back” in his performance in the Arizona Cardinals’ 13-10 loss to the Seahawks on Sunday.
Arizona’s offense struggled through much of the day in Seattle, and a late threat to at least go for a game-tying field goal ended when Kolb threw an interception.
It was only Kolb’s third game as quarterback of the Cardinals after he was acquired in a trade from Philadelphia.
He said it’s hard to get over a loss like that, but any NFL player has to do it to turn his attention to the next game. The Cardinals are at home against the Giants on Sunday.
“Put your nose down and start grinding, that’s all you can do,” Kolb said after Wednesday’s practice, “but you have to find the way to do it because win, lose, or draw, on Tuesday you are learning the next team. This is a good team coming in to play us. If we don’t let this one go, if I don’t let this one go, then we aren’t going to be ready to play on Sunday and that’s definitely not going to happen.”
Kolb had performed well in his first two games, a 28-21 victory at home over Carolina and a 22-21 loss at Washington, but he and the rest of the offense had problems in the wet, windy conditions of the Pacific Northwest. He completed 25 of 39 passes for 252 yards and a touchdown but was intercepted twice.
“You want to keep moving forward. You don’t want to take a step back,” Kolb said. “That game, I probably took a step back. We made some great plays, and there at the end the ball was in our hands to go win the game, and we didn’t execute.”
Kolb said the problems were “a combination of some mental errors, lack of execution, maybe not seeing things exactly the same.”
Coach Ken Whisenhunt said it’s good that his quarterback is so self-critical.
“He’s been very successful through high school and college,” Whisenhunt said. “He’s been a good player in the pros and I think he’s even going to be better as we continue to grow. That’s always been something that’s an important part of it; understanding how self-driven you are, and we see a lot of that in Kevin.”
Whisenhunt said there was plenty of blame to spread around.
“It wasn’t all Kevin,” the coach said. “We had a number of mistakes in that game, and it never would have come down to some of those situations had we been able to execute some of our other plays. You have to look at it that way. The progress that we are making with Kevin at that position is something that I’m excited about. I think it’s going to continue to build as we go forward during the season.”
Kolb said the Cardinals missed running back Beanie Wells, who sat out the game because of a hamstring injury he sustained in practice. Wells was limited in practice on Wednesday but the Cardinals are hopeful he can be ready for the Giants.
He said he was not taking anything away from the backs who did play, “but Beanie is a great player and he brings something different. He would have definitely helped if he was out there, but he wasn’t and we still had a chance to win so, again, that’s not an excuse.”
Kolb had a pretty touchdown pass to Larry Fitzgerald, who leaped between two defenders to grab the ball. But Kolb threw to his star receiver only twice in the second half, and both passes fell incomplete.
“We have to give him the ball a little bit more,” Kolb said. “We’ll move him around, do some certain things to get him some better matchups and that will make him a better all-around player too. We’ll just do what we can to keep spreading it around, take what the defense gives us, but also get it in his hands because he makes big plays for us.”