Ponder's QBR

[Mothman]

Here's a link to ESPN's weekly rankings of QBs by their QBR:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/qbr/_/type/player-week

For an explanation of just how they determine the QBR, go here:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/68332 ... ack-rating

Like some of the stats we see from PFF, it's a somewhat subjective stat but still interesting.

Anyway, on the weekly QBR rankings page, QBs are divided into 3 tiers of 10, with the remaining (bottom) QBs in a 4th tier. In other words, there's a top 10, a middle, 10, etc. It's interesting to see just how much Ponder's QBR rankings varied from week to week last season. His rankings, by week, were:

11
19
5
13
7
20
23
27
27
5
31
31
26
2
9
3

That's 6 weeks in the top tier, 4 weeks in the second tier, 4 weeks in the 3rd tier, 2 (back to back) in the bottom tier. As you can see, after hitting rock bottom with back to back weeks at 31, he then leapt up into the top 10 for the final 3 games. To put it another way, he was inconsistent, although he finished in the top 2 tiers 10 out of 16 times.

As a comparison, here are Aaron Rodgers week-to-week rankings:

18
27
16
5
12
3
1
9
10
17
28
7
4
8
5
13

That's 9 games in the top tier of 10, 5 in the second tier and 2 in the third. There's still fluctuation but clearly more consistency and a higher level of performance overall.

I don't know how much we can really glean from this sort of information but on the surface, at least, it suggests to me that, with experience, work and better performances around him Ponder really does have the potential to grow into a good QB and a difference-maker for his team. YMMV.

[CalVike]

Definitely interesting to ponder (pun intended), but the hardest part to me is explaining the inconsistency. We had WR trouble all year, never more than after Harvin went down, but he had some of his best games by this measure and some of his worst after the Harvin injury. Like many, I want to see more, but not much more, if 2013 defenses bring about the same maddening inconsistency as 2012.

[The Breeze]

I think Ponder has all the physical tools and has shown it. He definitely displays the inconsistency of young player....i would guess that it's because he is a young player.


The only thing I worry about with him is his mental state....confidence and what not. He's a smart studious type and maybe he thinks too much out there. Hopefully that evolves with experience and he can just go with the flow.

The way he finished up last season was promising. He could go either way IMO. I'm rooting for him.

[soflavike]

Ponder was coddled with game plans and play calls that took his limitations into account. He rarely attempted any completion longer than 20 yds in the air and his accuracy on those throws was tragic. Bad underthrows mostly. The QBR does not really capture that.

Compare Ponder's passing yds per game to the other QB's in the division.

Stafford: 310
Rodgers: 268
Cutler: 202
Ponder: 183

Now look at attempts:
Stafford: 727
Rodgers: 552
Ponder: 483
Cutler: 434

Yards per attempt:
Stafford: 6.83
Rodgers: 7.78
Ponder: 6.08
Cutler: 6.99

Completion percentage:
Stafford: 59.8%
Rodgers: 67.2%
Cutler: 58.8%
Ponder: 62.1%

TD's / INT's:
Stafford: 20 / 17
Rodgers: 39 / 8
Cutler: 19 / 14
Ponder: 18 / 12

The long and the short of it is that Ponder was asked to do much less than Rodgers or Stafford and was far less productive. He was about as productive as Cutler, though. Hardly a comforting thought.

He was way better than Cassel, though.

[Mothman]

Ponder was coddled with game plans and play calls that took his limitations into account. He rarely attempted any completion longer than 20 yds in the air and his accuracy on those throws was tragic. Bad underthrows mostly. The QBR does not really capture that.

The QBR is designed to capture that, although I don't buy that Ponder was coddled. I think the game plans they formulated were based on the personnel they had. Ponder was asked to do less than Rodgers or Stafford but why on earth would they have asked him to put the ball in the air 500+ or 700+ times when they had Adrian Peterson in the backfield?!

Big attempt and yardage totals don't necessarily equate to good QB play. Rodgers was excellent last year, as usual, but Stafford? He piled up completions and yardage but didn't have a particularly good season. For all that effort, he managed to throw 20 TDs and 17 INTs as his team went 4-12. His 244 additional attempts yielded just 2 more TD passes than the much-maligned Ponder threw. I'll take the 10 wins and Ponder's season over what Stafford and the Lions did last year, even though they completed almost 5000 yards worth of passes.

[Mothman]

Definitely interesting to ponder (pun intended), but the hardest part to me is explaining the inconsistency. We had WR trouble all year, never more than after Harvin went down, but he had some of his best games by this measure and some of his worst after the Harvin injury. Like many, I want to see more, but not much more, if 2013 defenses bring about the same maddening inconsistency as 2012.

As The Breeze indicated, the inconsistency isn't that hard to explain, although it's frustrating. Ponder's a young player and young players are often inconsistent. Combine that with some of the other factors on offense and I thought it was pretty easy to see what happened. Put simply, Ponder wasn't the only one on offense playing inconsistent football during his slump. There was practically an epidemic of missed blocks, dropped passes, poor throws... you name it. At some point, it clearly got into Ponder's head and he can't let that happen this season but every aspect of the passing offense was struggling mightily for a while last season. Ponder was just front and center.

[CapDB7]

We were so run heavy last year that I feel Ponders stats don't reflect his performances in general. In only a few games did he not perform well enough to do what was asked of him. Whilst he didn't stand out I think it'd be unfair to suggest that he under performed or was a hindrance to the team.

A game changer? Not really last year, but it wasn't really asked of him. We are so AP centric it is unreal but luckily not many have an answer to him. It works and long may it continue. If only CP could have made the playoffs.

I'd blame the play calling for the poor appearance of the stats. Going into last season I wasn't a Ponder fan. He had a tough first year but the team wasn't great and he didn't have a full preparation with McBabb taking first team snaps. He won me over though with a few performances and if he improves this much as he did last year then we're in for a good ride with a nice WR draft pick up.

Harvin is a great player but I don't feel that you need him and AP in the same team as the screens etc could just be handed off to AP like it was at the end of the season which resulted in the 200 rushing games for him. Jennings will add more balance with AP than PH did. IMHO.

I'm excited to see him with a new set of WRs next year but I still don't expect him to end up with anywhere near 5000 yards like Stafford or Rodgers as our play calling doesn't enable it.

[jackal]

To me the Jury; is still out on Ponder ..

He had games where he played great like SF last year and games where he played like garbage Tampa Bay IMO

The first year in the NFL you can't count against him to be fair no off season because of the strike(CBA)
and McFlabb ruined most of that season..

If he does not rapidly improve this year with a better wide out core and more time to mature ..
I will gladly dump him off the roster..

[Mothman]

There's a good column by Reusse at the Star Tribune site in which he discusses Cassel, Ponder and the history of rookie QBs getting starts in Minnesota:

http://www.startribune.com/sports/vikin ... 26711.html

[soflavike]

You would think that a good QB facing 8 in the box more than any other QB in the league (thanks to the best running back in recent memory) would complete a lot of 20+ yard passes. Instead, it was mostly little dump-offs, screens and outs, hoping for YAC. No defense in the league respects Ponder's deep passing game. It was our achilles heel in 2012. Ponder is simply a below-average NFL quarterback, so far.

Let's hope he breaks out in 2013.

[Tark10]

Congrats to the organization for signing Jennings. I never thought it would happen. This will be the 3rd year for Ponder. Hopefully, they'll draft one more receiver with one of the first two picks. I suspect Ponder will be more productive this year due to additional experience and better talent at wide receiver. This is my wish list for him in 2013.
1. 61% completion rate.
2. 3500 yds passing.
3. 24 plus touchdowns.
4. <16 picks.

AND 2014 even a bit more.

I never saw so many passes behind the line of scrimmage by Ponder. Kubiak tried a lot of short passes with Carr during his last year with the Texans. He did that because Carr couldn't read defenses. Lets hope Ponder doesn't suffer from that affliction. TIME, PATIENCE, lets cross our fingers!

[Mothman]

You would think that a good QB facing 8 in the box more than any other QB in the league (thanks to the best running back in recent memory) would complete a lot of 20+ yard passes. Instead, it was mostly little dump-offs, screens and outs, hoping for YAC. No defense in the league respects Ponder's deep passing game. It was our achilles heel in 2012. Ponder is simply a below-average NFL quarterback, so far.

Let's hope he breaks out in 2013.

I hope he does. I agree that overall, he's below average at this point but the key word there is overall. The point I wanted to make with the weekly QBR ratings is that even though a lot of people seem to have come away from last season more focused on the bad or disappointing aspects of Ponder's game than the good, what he was more than anything was inconsistent and consequently, I think there's hope that he can take a big step forward in 2013, especially if the play around him is better. In a few games (against playoff-caliber teams) Ponder looked like the kind of sharp, young leader at QB who can take a team places. In others, he looked like a future backup. Hopefully, he takes a big step toward being that sharp leader this season.

Jim

[PurplePPLEater]

The QBR is designed to capture that, although I don't buy that Ponder was coddled. I think the game plans they formulated were based on the personnel they had. Ponder was asked to do less than Rodgers or Stafford but why on earth would they have asked him to put the ball in the air 500+ or 700+ times when they had Adrian Peterson in the backfield?!

Big attempt and yardage totals don't necessarily equate to good QB play. Rodgers was excellent last year, as usual, but Stafford? He piled up completions and yardage but didn't have a particularly good season. For all that effort, he managed to throw 20 TDs and 17 INTs as his team went 4-12. His 244 additional attempts yielded just 2 more TD passes than the much-maligned Ponder threw. I'll take the 10 wins and Ponder's season over what Stafford and the Lions did last year, even though they completed almost 5000 yards worth of passes.

And if you watched any lions games last year, you'll see that he was able to rack up a lot of useless yardage against prevent-type defense at the end of games when they were trailing by more than a touchdown.

Thanks for putting that together for us!

[Delaqure]

It's really his inconsistancy that is a problem, not the fact he didn't throw a bunch of 20+ yard passes. With Peterson in the backfield we should not be a pass heavy team. But what what we should be able to do is convert heavily on 3rd downs and hit the passes when they are there. If he can get consistant even on the shorter to med routes we are in for a really good season.

[PurpleKoolaid]

There's a good column by Reusse at the Star Tribune site in which he discusses Cassel, Ponder and the history of rookie QBs getting starts in Minnesota:

http://www.startribune.com/sports/vikin ... 26711.html

As usual, Reusse hit the nail on the head. Thats why its si impotant to just get rid of Webb and mbt now, and draft a really late round QB. One that can sit for a few years and figure things out (hopefully longer as we wont need him). Have Webb and MBT back there was just pointless.