The Eagles are coming off an 11-5 season that included a playoff berth, not the 5-11 campaign in coach Andy Reid's first season. And Kolb will be surrounded by offensive skill players, led by receivers DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin, that McNabb sorely lacked in his first full year as the starter.
Kolb knows as much. That's why he has similar expectations for himself.
"I want to get 100 percent completions and touchdowns and everything else," Kolb said somewhat kiddingly after Thursday's walk-through at Lehigh University. "We want to start this thing off right."
Reid obviously wants to kick off the next phase of his tenure in Philadelphia with a positive start. Kolb and the Eagles starters are expected to play just one quarter. The quarterback's performance will be the first indicator of whether Reid made the right choice when he traded McNabb to Washington and promoted his backup in the off-season.
"I think what you look for a quarterback to do is to execute the offense and to lead the offense and to make sure that he manages the game the proper way," Reid said. "So that's how I approach it with [Kolb]. I think that with any quarterback in the National Football League, if they think that they are going to complete every ball, then that's a good thing."
Of course, if Kolb were to struggle and, say, complete just 3 of 8 passes for 57 yards while throwing an interception - those, by the way, were the numbers put up by Tim Couch, McNabb's Browns counterpart all those years ago - there could be some early second-guessing and maybe even a few boos from the fans at Lincoln Financial Field.
