John Skelton was noting last week how the NFL has a brutal way of sometimes resolving quarterback controversies on its own.
"Yeah," he said. "For good or for bad."
On Tuesday, it was the bad kind of resolution for the Arizona Cardinals. The team confirmed that quarterback Kevin Kolb suffered a sprain of the SC joint and cartilage damage in his ribs and will miss an unspecified amount of time. The official update also said CT and MRI results showed no fracture in Kolb's ribs or sternum.
Kolb was injured late in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 19-16 overtime loss to the Bills when he scrambled on a busted play and was tackled by two players, landing on top of the football.
Kolb missed about half of his first season as a Cardinal in 2011 with foot and head (concussion) injuries. He was relegated to the backup role when the season started, but Skelton suffered an ankle sprain in the fourth quarter of a Week 1 game against Seattle.
Kolb came on and rallied the Cardinals to victory, then led them to three more and a 4-0 start. But Arizona has lost its last two games, and Kolb has been sacked 22 times in the past three, due in large part to a porous offensive line whose tackles, Bobby Massie and D'Anthony Batiste, are inexperienced, and whose guards, Daryn Colledge and Adam Snyder, have played below par.
Kolb did a good job of eluding pressure Sunday against the Bills, avoiding several sacks and rushing five times for 66 yards. But the last rush proved costly. Kolb has completed 109 of 183 passes (59.6 percent) for 1,169 yards, eight TDs and three interceptions for a passer rating of 86.1
The team has not made an official announcement, but Skelton will resume his starting duties when the Cards travel to Minneapolis to face the Vikings on Sunday. Rookie Ryan Lindley will be the backup.
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