The Christian Ponder Thread #2 (News, Stories, Articles, Opinions)

[vikingsfan0845]

Yes I to read what Tom P. writes....But Frazier is just giving the company lines, and Tom P. needs to have a good relationship with the FO of the Vikings so it wouldn't be in his best interest to slam Ponder either. Not a valid reason for someone to believe in Ponder.

Lets look at the positives from Ponder....
The 3rd and 8 pass on our opening drive....Briggs fell over and Jenkins made the play, Ponder threw the ball 3 yards short of the first down.
The 2 3rd down's late in the game to help us run the clock....1 was a really nice catch by the absolutly awful M. Jenkins....
I'd say his incomplete deep pass was a good throw....

Also I've seen 4 throws in 3 weeks where Ponder delivers a pass before being hit...So he is improving there....early in the year he had a tendency to just duck his head and take the sack. But he threw off his back foot of 2 of those 4.

Now we are to the bad....Ponder was 0 for 4 with an INT when throwing beyond 10 yards....

The fact that he only tried 4 passes beyond 10 yards, and that it's the Vikings clear game plan to just hand off to Peterson, should tell you all you need to know about what the coaches opinion of Ponder is....

O yeah and every good play he had was an even better play by the "terrible" M. Jenkins...

This guy sucks and I'm never going to let you guys forget that you thought he was a good QB.

That doesn't make much sense. The guy has the freedom to say whatever he wants and his job has no attachments to the front office. He works for ESPN, not the Vikings.

[100%CHEESE FREE]

That doesn't make much sense. The guy has the freedom to say whatever he wants and his job has no attachments to the front office. He works for ESPN, not the Vikings.

Because Spielman won't give him the inside scoop if he doesn't tow the party line

[100%CHEESE FREE]

His weapons suck? Seriously? Malcom Floyd, Antonio Gates, Ryan Mathews and don't forget Danario Alexander, who has exploded since the Chargers signed him. Floyd and Alexander dwarf anything the Vikings have right now. Gates isn't the player he used to be but he's still Antonio Gates. Hell even their 3rd and 4th string receivers (Robert Meachem and Eddie Royal) are better than what we will be throwing out their Sunday.

That's all Ponder's fault though, if it we had a real QB here Michael Jenkins would already be getting measured for his bust in Canton and Musgrave's would already be there! A real QB would make our receivers not suck!

[jojo30]

That's all Ponder's fault though, if it we had a real QB here Michael Jenkins would already be getting measured for his bust in Canton and Musgrave's would already be there! A real QB would make our receivers not suck!

So it must be our receivers fault that Ponder misses wide open recievers that are past 5 yards down the field. Or it must be their fault that his mechanics are garbage. Clearly his poor decision making through out his young career is DEFINITELY the recievers fault. Im not saying that the recievers shouldnt take some of the blame, but poor reciever help doesnt give Ponder a free pass because he should still be playing a lot better.

[iowavike]

So it must be our receivers fault that Ponder misses wide open recievers that are past 5 yards down the field. Or it must be their fault that his mechanics are garbage. Clearly his poor decision making through out his young career is DEFINITELY the recievers fault. Im not saying that the recievers shouldnt take some of the blame, but poor reciever help doesnt give Ponder a free pass because he should still be playing a lot better.

Agreed. If you look around the league, not very many teams are happy with their receivers and O.lines. The Bears had a terrible Oline to begin with and now they're down to the 2nd. string because of injurys. And they only have 1 guy that can catch the ball. Look at that Hester drop for a touchdown. All of our receivers would've caught that.
As Apollo points out. Ponder was 0-4 w/ 1 int. on passes over 10 yrds.
I'm sorry but after 22 games that's pathetic.
It's starting to get national attention with AP quest for the record and MVP talk. Reporters say AP is doing it with 9 in the box. And that our QB is down right horrific.
As I said before. Is the Cards Fitzgerald a bad, sucky receiver because he hasn't caught many passes this year? Or is it bad QB play.
Yes, maybe us nay sayers are to impatient. Oh look at Mannings stats the first year he sucked. Or Elways and Bradshaw.
One major difference today is college football QB's are pro ready unlike even 10 years ago. Except for Army and Navys QB's. It doesn't take them 4 years to be ready.
Case and point - Luck, RG3, R. Wilson, Tannahill rookies./ 2nd. year QB's- Kaepernick, Dalton, Locker, Newton, McElroy even won a game for the Jets. These QB's are all doing well and many are doing excellent.
Maybe the most important point I can make ,especially for those of you that disagree with me is that with this team where it's at age and talent wise needs a fuctional QB right now especially where AP is right now. He's not always going to be able to run this well. YES YES YES we need at least 1 really good receiver. But that alone isn't going to fix Ponder. Lets just admit it. He's just not very good and never will be!

[Sota4Ever]

Did you forget about jerome simpson against the bears??

[niftynation11]

Drew brees, alex smith, matt schaub.

That'll work. Thanks 'Sota haha Don't forget that Peyton had 20+ INTs his rookie year too. Nearly every QB has up and down years. That's just how this league works. Just because someone has 1 or 2 good/bad years, it doesn't mean that they are guaranteed to be either good or bad. Look at Cassel, he lit it up with the Pats for one year and then got paid big money by the Chiefs. And now Cassel is atrocious! This is what happens when you jump to conclusions rather then just being patient and seeing what we have.

[niftynation11]

Agreed. If you look around the league, not very many teams are happy with their receivers and O.lines. The Bears had a terrible Oline to begin with and now they're down to the 2nd. string because of injurys. And they only have 1 guy that can catch the ball. Look at that Hester drop for a touchdown. All of our receivers would've caught that.
As Apollo points out. Ponder was 0-4 w/ 1 int. on passes over 10 yrds.
I'm sorry but after 22 games that's pathetic.
It's starting to get national attention with AP quest for the record and MVP talk. Reporters say AP is doing it with 9 in the box. And that our QB is down right horrific.
As I said before. Is the Cards Fitzgerald a bad, sucky receiver because he hasn't caught many passes this year? Or is it bad QB play.
Yes, maybe us nay sayers are to impatient. Oh look at Mannings stats the first year he sucked. Or Elways and Bradshaw.
One major difference today is college football QB's are pro ready unlike even 10 years ago. Except for Army and Navys QB's. It doesn't take them 4 years to be ready.
Case and point - Luck, RG3, R. Wilson, Tannahill rookies./ 2nd. year QB's- Kaepernick, Dalton, Locker, Newton, McElroy even won a game for the Jets. These QB's are all doing well and many are doing excellent.
Maybe the most important point I can make ,especially for those of you that disagree with me is that with this team where it's at age and talent wise needs a fuctional QB right now especially where AP is right now. He's not always going to be able to run this well. YES YES YES we need at least 1 really good receiver. But that alone isn't going to fix Ponder. Lets just admit it. He's just not very good and never will be!

1. We are only 1 game behind the Bears.

2. Jenkins and possibly Wright are the only ones I would have faith that they would catch that pass. TheSho (devin) also dropped a sure-fire TD.

3. Did we really just use McElroy as an example of good NFL QB play? Classic. He won one game; a game in which the so called experts said was possibly the worst game in history from a QB play stand-point.

I totally agree with you guys that Ponder needs to play better. WAY better. But all the bashing and whining isn't going to help anyone. Not us, not the franchise and certainly not Ponder. The negativity only serves to bring everyone down. We are all stressing over a game. First-World problems. haha Just enjoy life and enjoy watching the good parts of the game. Let the problems be handled by the professionals. Shoots

[sdak87]

Here's the thing. Is Ponder going to be great? Signs point to no, but we don't know yet. I think we are in a damn good position really. We have this draft to get ALL those things that Ponder supporters think he needs to accel. I say we draft a LG, then WR, WR, then any Def needs. This will give Ponder all the tools he needs to either fly or flounder. We will have Ponder as our starter next year anyway guys, so i think this draft gives this team the good look at Ponder we need in his third year. After that either we have the QB we want or we look elsewhere and with a young skillfull team in place already, we can trade as many draft picks away as we want to get that QB we want......IF Ponder fails with an above avg team around him.

This scenerio does nothing to improve the Coaching mind you, but maybe we can get Norv or Reid as our OC for next year theres always hope.

[Sota4Ever]

Perfect. Maybe bring in a better back up qb though.

[sdak87]

Perfect. Maybe bring in a better back up qb though.

I agree. I still say not having a Vet back up, a la Sage Rosy, is actually hurting the development of Ponder. He doesn't have that guy to talk to after each drive whos been there before and would have little things to advise Ponder on for the next drive, etc.

[niftynation11]

Sounds good to me. 3 years is a good amount of time for the FO to judge whether or not Ponder is the guy. This upcoming draft should be a lot of fun. With that said, everyone go post on the "Draft Central" blog, its never too early to start dreaming! haha

[100%CHEESE FREE]

Agreed. If you look around the league, not very many teams are happy with their receivers and O.lines. The Bears had a terrible Oline to begin with and now they're down to the 2nd. string because of injurys. And they only have 1 guy that can catch the ball. Look at that Hester drop for a touchdown. All of our receivers would've caught that.
As Apollo points out. Ponder was 0-4 w/ 1 int. on passes over 10 yrds.
I'm sorry but after 22 games that's pathetic.
It's starting to get national attention with AP quest for the record and MVP talk. Reporters say AP is doing it with 9 in the box. And that our QB is down right horrific.
As I said before. Is the Cards Fitzgerald a bad, sucky receiver because he hasn't caught many passes this year? Or is it bad QB play.
Yes, maybe us nay sayers are to impatient. Oh look at Mannings stats the first year he sucked. Or Elways and Bradshaw.
One major difference today is college football QB's are pro ready unlike even 10 years ago. Except for Army and Navys QB's. It doesn't take them 4 years to be ready.
Case and point - Luck, RG3, R. Wilson, Tannahill rookies./ 2nd. year QB's- Kaepernick, Dalton, Locker, Newton, McElroy even won a game for the Jets. These QB's are all doing well and many are doing excellent.
Maybe the most important point I can make ,especially for those of you that disagree with me is that with this team where it's at age and talent wise needs a fuctional QB right now especially where AP is right now. He's not always going to be able to run this well. YES YES YES we need at least 1 really good receiver. But that alone isn't going to fix Ponder. Lets just admit it. He's just not very good and never will be!

So once again, you're comparing Michael Jenkins to Larry Fitzgerald and you're NOT EVEN SEEING WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS COMPARISON! Also, no Jenkins wouldn't have even made that catch that Hester dropped because had Jenkins been running the play he probably wouldn't have been in position to make the catch in the first place! Its very debatable weather Simpson could have caught that too because he's consistently dropped much easier passes. Aromashodu SHOULD be able to make a catch like that but it hasn't stopped him in the past. Burton is more likely to cower from the ball than he is to catch it when he could get hit, and last of all we have our under used rookie Wright who probably had the best chance at making that catch of any of our WRs, which again speaks volumes toward the overall lack of quality we have at this position.

The fact that we are regularly using Michael Jenkins on deep routes and relying on him to be a major contributor in our pass game is mind boggling! As we saw demonstrated last week, the only use the guy has is on short ins, outs, hooks or the odd come-back. When used like this (and he's able to get between the ball and the DB) he can be somewhat productive (and with Ponder no less). He's too slow to beat his DB in a foot race, as good as his hands are, you don't want to be throwing up a contested ball to him if you can help it, so about the only hope of him doing anything in this situation relies on the DB blowing his cover which is a pretty dumb thing to rely on. THIS IS HOW OUR OFFENSE WORKS RIGHT NOW! Do you not see the problem here?

Ponder has lots of his own failings and things he needs to work on, but the fact that he's working with arguably the worst set of receivers (some of whom, as demonstrated, are not being used correctly) in the NFL is something that you guys continuously try to make excuses about and talk around. These guys would suck just as much if we had a different/better QB, to the point that even if he was playing better than Ponder, he would still be struggling to move the ball through the air with any consistency. We have a dysfunctional passing game which goes WAY beyond the QB.

[iowavike]

So once again, you're comparing Michael Jenkins to Larry Fitzgerald and you're NOT EVEN SEEING WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS COMPARISON! Also, no Jenkins wouldn't have even made that catch that Hester dropped because had Jenkins been running the play he probably wouldn't have been in position to make the catch in the first place! Its very debatable weather Simpson could have caught that too because he's consistently dropped much easier passes. Aromashodu SHOULD be able to make a catch like that but it hasn't stopped him in the past. Burton is more likely to cower from the ball than he is to catch it when he could get hit, and last of all we have our under used rookie Wright who probably had the best chance at making that catch of any of our WRs, which again speaks volumes toward the overall lack of quality we have at this position.

The fact that we are regularly using Michael Jenkins on deep routes and relying on him to be a major contributor in our pass game is mind boggling! As we saw demonstrated last week, the only use the guy has is on short ins, outs, hooks or the odd come-back. When used like this (and he's able to get between the ball and the DB) he can be somewhat productive (and with Ponder no less). He's too slow to beat his DB in a foot race, as good as his hands are, you don't want to be throwing up a contested ball to him if you can help it, so about the only hope of him doing anything in this situation relies on the DB blowing his cover which is a pretty dumb thing to rely on. THIS IS HOW OUR OFFENSE WORKS RIGHT NOW! Do you not see the problem here?

Ponder has lots of his own failings and things he needs to work on, but the fact that he's working with arguably the worst set of receivers (some of whom, as demonstrated, are not being used correctly) in the NFL is something that you guys continuously try to make excuses about and talk around. These guys would suck just as much if we had a different/better QB, to the point that even if he was playing better than Ponder, he would still be struggling to move the ball through the air with any consistency. We have a dysfunctional passing game which goes WAY beyond the QB.

Sorry didn't see where the name Jenkins is in my post. But whats new?
Outside of the few of you backing Ponder til the very end, on this forum. There's absolutely no one in this country or Canada that thinks Ponder's anything but a joke anymore.
Well the Pack and Bears would be the only others that want Ponder to be the Vikes QB for the next 15 years.
Last year it was, just wait til next year. With a full training camp. New LT. and a free agent WR. Ponder will be great. As Sarah Palin would say (hows that working out for ya ?)
Now it's Oh wait til his 3rd. season he should be really good next year.
Please keep posting guys. I need the good laughs.

[VCU4LIFEGOVIKS]

Sorry didn't see where the name Jenkins is in my post. But whats new?
Outside of the few of you backing Ponder til the very end, on this forum. There's absolutely no one in this country or Canada that thinks Ponder's anything but a joke anymore.
Well the Pack and Bears would be the only others that want Ponder to be the Vikes QB for the next 15 years.
Last year it was, just wait til next year. With a full training camp. New LT. and a free agent WR. Ponder will be great. As Sarah Palin would say (hows that working out for ya ?)
Now it's Oh wait til his 3rd. season he should be really good next year.
Please keep posting guys. I need the good laughs.

The Vikings organization obviously doesn't consider him a joke and they have more knowledge of situation then you or any of those "Canadians". He will be starting for the rest of the season and most likely all of next year. You have the right to keep complaining and crying about it but that wont change the fact that he is our best option.