Ponder: The Answer?

[J. Kapp 11]

Well, keep in mind that it's not the first time he's played like that with a game on the line. He bookended the season with clutch 4th quarter performances.

Technically, that's true.

Of course, his first clutch performance was against the incredibly awful Jaguars in Week 1, and against the division champion Packers in Week 17 with the entire season on the line. But I take your point.

[purplehaze]

Ponder the answer? NO.

[HardcoreVikesFan]

You know, I am back on the Ponder bandwagon. I think he plays well for us next year.

That being said, this team would be doing itself a major disservice if they do not acquire another QB in the offseason. Hell, this team could use two new other QBs in all honestly.

[losperros]

Technically, that's true.

Of course, his first clutch performance was against the incredibly awful Jaguars in Week 1, and against the division champion Packers in Week 17 with the entire season on the line. But I take your point.

Great discussion in this thread. Some fun reading!

Going back to what you said about the "fluky" possibility, I sure wish there was stronger evidence one way or another about Ponder. I don't know. I really want the guy to succeed and be the franchise QB the Vikings need but no way I'd put money on it. I mean, the Vikings started the season with Ponder being a question mark and really (at least in my view) they ended the season the same way. Why? Because, as you said, what we saw late in the season, even the good stuff against the Pack, could very well be something fluky.

OTOH, I also think we saw a change in the offensive chemistry across the board from the coaching staff right to the players. Maybe it was the lights out running by AD that did it but it sure seemed like everyone, Ponder included, picked their performances up during the last four games. So does that mean if the players around him are capable of playing at a higher level, then Ponder will do the same? If that's the case, then improving the WR corps (which I believe the Vikings are going to do) should help Ponder be more consistent next year. Just thinking out loud here.

[Reignman]

Good grief, I can't believe so many of you are content with having such a less than mediocre guy playing the most important position on your football team. A better question comes to mind, do we enjoy being disappointed and miserable in Minnesota?

We're making this a lot harder than it has to be. Just ask yourself, how good would Ponder be without AD? And yes it's a fair question because you're not always going to have a freak at RB, and we can't expect AD to challenge Dickersons record every year. If AD had not made it back in record time and/or regressed because of the injury, what would our record have been this year? 4-12 or 5-11 at best? Who would still think Ponder was the answer? Then why do we think he's the answer with a healthy beast mode AD?

Maybe I'm just greedy but I want more than a serviceable QB handing the ball to AD. You know, just in case we get into one of those situation where we actually have to win by throwing the ball.

[Rus]

Good grief, I can't believe so many of you are content with having such a less than mediocre guy

Actually, the truth is that most of us know exactly what next year's free agent and draft quarterback market is.

It's all backup quarterbacks, with maybe the exception of what will be a very, very overpriced Joe Flacco. There are two, maybe three backup quarterbacks worth trading for. There's Mark Sanchez. There are a couple college guys that might pan out, maybe. Barkley might be good if his injuries don't kill his career before it starts. Geno Smith won't be available, and in a year with a good quarterback crop (like last year or the year before), he probably would have been a second rounder.

Tarvaris Jackson is considered one of the best free agent quarterbacks on the market.

Am I depressing you? It's because most Viking fans have accepted that this is a really bad time to go back to the well, unless you want a bucket of sand. When you take a look at the options, consider how much it would cost to get anyone even marginally more talented than Ponder, it becomes very easy to rally around Christian Ponder.

If the guy can play reasonably consistently at about 80% of what he did in the Packers and 49ers games, he's as good a solution as any unless something great falls into their laps. When Ponder's playing well, he makes passes that most people didn't expect him to be capable of. There definitely seems to be some untapped talent there that could develop.

[Just Me]

Technically, that's true.

Of course, his first clutch performance was against the incredibly awful Jaguars in Week 1, and against the division champion Packers in Week 17 with the entire season on the line. But I take your point.

Add the Colts game to the mix. He drove down to tie the game (TD Pass to Rudolph with 36 seconds left in the game) late in the 4th, it's just Luck got the ball back and got enough yardage for a 53 yarder to get the win for the Colts...

[J. Kapp 11]

Good grief, I can't believe so many of you are content with having such a less than mediocre guy playing the most important position on your football team.

Maybe I'm just greedy but I want more than a serviceable QB handing the ball to AD. You know, just in case we get into one of those situation where we actually have to win by throwing the ball.

You mean like the fourth quarter of the Week 17 win over the Packers?

And by the way, which is it? "Less than mediocre" or "serviceable"?

Look, maybe some of us just see potential in the guy. Maybe we are able to look past the 4,000-yard instant gratification of Andrew Luck and see a guy who has had the deck stacked against him from the beginning -- a rookie on a terrible team with no training camp. A second-year player who, by Week 10, was throwing to such luminary receivers as Devin Aromashodu, Stephen Burton and Michael Jenkins. A guy who made those receivers look pretty good in Week 17.

And, as Rus said, who are we going to get to replace him?

Maybe we're delusional. It's possible. Honestly, read the posts. None of us are going, "RG-who?" I wanted to strangle the guy right around the third quarter of the first Green Bay game. All of us want to see more of the Week 17 version of Christian Ponder and no more of the Week 13 version. But no matter how you want to look at it, the guy was the quarterback for a 10-6 playoff team.

[VikingLord]

I think all of these things can be done. There are plenty of options out there for a No. 2 quarterback, and none of them are particularly expensive. But we MUST upgrade the WR position for sure, and I think DB and LB are positions of need more than guard. Our offensive line improved in sacks-per-dropback from 25th in the NFL last year to 16th this year, and they paved the way for a 2,000-yard rusher. Not saying we can't get better on the OL, or that improving our guard play wouldn't be welcome. I just think it ranks behind WR, DB and LB.

I'd agree actually, but in watching the guard play, it was really feast or famine. While Kalil, Sully, and Loadholt were pretty consistent all season, there were many plays when one or both guards just got blown up and it blew up the run (mostly runs, although sometimes pass protection as well).

Even with the inconsistent guard play, AD still got well over 2,000 yards. If you replace the spotty guard play with consistent play, even on one side of the OL, I think the runs for a loss, at least to that side, would become much more infrequent. And then if Ponder progresses and the Vikes can find a legit WR in addition to Harvin, that really makes it hard for defenses.

The only guard I'm really excited about in this year's draft is Chance Warmack from Alabama. He's a beast and if he's still on the board at #23 by some miracle I think he'd be a no-brainer. I don't expect him to last that long, but just thinking about plopping him between Kalil and Sully is enough to make me wonder if AD couldn't go for 2,500. Seriously. If not this coming year, one of these next 3. That would be a monster lineup, especially if you add Felton's lead blocking into the mix. Nobody would want a piece of that.

[soflavike]

Minnesota Vikings Passing Offense 2012:
Source: http://www.pro-football-reference.com

Completions: 300 (ranked #24)
Attempts: 483 (ranked #28)
Completion Percentage: 62.1% (ranked #12) << pretty good!

Total Passing Yards: 2751 (ranked #31) << better than the Chiefs!
Yards gained per pass attempt: 6.1 (ranked #31) << better than the Jaguars!
Yards gained per pass completion: 9.8 (ranked #32)
Yards passing per game: 171.9 (ranked #31) << better than the Chiefs!

Passing TD's: 18 (ranked #26)
Interceptions: 12 (ranked #25)
Times Sacked: 32 (ranked #22)
Comebacks led by QB in 4th quarter: 1
Game Winning Drives led by QB: 2

Longest Vikings passing plays by game:
Week 1 (JAX) 29 yards
Week 2 (IND) 20 yards
Week 3 (SFO) 24 yards
Week 4 (DET) 27 yards
Week 5 (TEN) 45 yards
Week 6 (WAS) 23 yards
Week 7 (ARI) 14 yards
Week 8 (TAM) 33 yards
Week 9 (SEA) 14 yards
Week 10 (DET) 54 yards
Week 11 BYE
Week 12 (CHI) 25 yards
Week 13 (GNB) 21 yards
Week 14 (CHI) 16 yards
Week 15 (STL) 14 yards
Week 16 (HOU) 32 yards
Week 17 (GNB) 65 yards

Average longest pass play per game: 28.5 yards << what is the opposite of "explosive"?

Conclusion: Ponder has lousy range. Anything beyond 20 yards is a major challenge for the guy.

If our goal was to not be the worst passing offense in the league, we succeeded only thanks to the Chiefs' generosity.

[dead_poet]

Conclusion: Ponder has lousy range. Anything beyond 20 yards is a major challenge for the guy.

There are MANY more factors than Christian Ponder in throws beyond 20 yards. Simply saying Ponder is the root of the problem is not an accurate statement.

[smoothoperator]

what i dont understand is people think we should have 400 passing yards a game, pretty hard to when ap is rushing for 150-200. there are only so many plays in a game. the wrs are also clearly a huge problem as has been stated many, many times. ponder can clearly throw a deep ball when a WR can figure out how to get open.

[soflavike]

There are MANY more factors than Christian Ponder in throws beyond 20 yards. Simply saying Ponder is the root of the problem is not an accurate statement.

Nine games without a single pass over 25 yards, including yards-after-catch??? That is pretty pathetic for an NFL QB. Having a killer running game and facing 8 in the box almost every down should make it fairly easy to rip off at least 3-4 passes over 25 yards per game. Ponder has no arm and he knows it... and the coaches know it... they are trying to hide it with dinks and dunks. All his long completions were rainbows or short passes converted into big plays by Harvin and others. His arm is not NFL caliber.

[dead_poet]

Nine games without a single pass over 25 yards, including yards-after-catch??? That is pretty pathetic for an NFL QB. Having a killer running game and facing 8 in the box almost every down should make it fairly easy to rip off at least 3-4 passes over 25 yards per game. Ponder has no arm and he knows it... and the coaches know it... they are trying to hide it with dinks and dunks. All his long completions were rainbows or short passes converted into big plays by Harvin and others. His arm is not NFL caliber.

Wow. I'd suggest reading some more analysis. Every source/"expert" I've read about Ponder this season has said he has more than adequate arm strength. And that's been evident when he has time to throw, there's been a deep route called, the receiver separates and Ponder gets enough time to step up and throw.

Saying Ponder has a weak NFL arm is simply wrong. It's not a cannon, but it's not a noodle. Honestly.

And there's a difference between dumpoff passes and designed short patterns. Ponder was ASKED to execute short passes, not because he didn't have the arm strength to pull off intermediate throws, but because he had shaky/poor protection (especially early) and receivers that couldn't separate (okay, maybe some of that was the coaching staff's hesitation to turn him lose for fear of making mistakes). This was obvious and everybody from beat guys to announcers have repeated the same exact thing. Now, Ponder did have errant throws. He's not Aaron Rodgers by any stretch of the imagination. But he also completed a fair share, some were difficult, long and high pressure throws.

Some of his "rainbows" were perfectly placed where a more line-drive toss would've been more susceptible to deflection or interception.

Again, he had some mental mistakes and plain bad throws this season, but he also had many that were excellent. Protection and lack of quality targets, coupled with a short passing attack used to get the ball in Harvin's hands early, were contributing factors. Denying those were factors is a choice you're making independent of the reality of the situation.

[soflavike]

Wow. I'd suggest reading some more analysis. Every source/"expert" I've read about Ponder this season has said he has more than adequate arm strength. And that's been evident when he has time to throw, there's been a deep route called, the receiver separates and Ponder gets enough time to step up and throw.

Saying Ponder has a weak NFL arm is simply wrong. It's not a cannon, but it's not a noodle. Honestly.

It ain't even 'al-dente'. Watching the other playoff QB's this past weekend, you could clearly see what we are missing with Ponder. Without even mentioning Rodgers' cannon, look at Russell Wilson, RGIII, Schaub, Flacco, Luck... only Andy Dalton has a similarly suspect arm.

And there's a difference between dumpoff passes and designed short patterns. Ponder was ASKED to execute short passes, not because he didn't have the arm strength to pull off intermediate throws, but because he had shaky/poor protection (especially early) and receivers that couldn't separate (okay, maybe some of that was the coaching staff's hesitation to turn him lose for fear of making mistakes). This was obvious and everybody from beat guys to announcers have repeated the same exact thing. Now, Ponder did have errant throws. He's not Aaron Rodgers by any stretch of the imagination. But he also completed a fair share, some were difficult, long and high pressure throws.

Some of his "rainbows" were perfectly placed where a more line-drive toss would've been more susceptible to deflection or interception.

And a bunch were underthrown, incomplete and intercepted.

Again, he had some mental mistakes and plain bad throws this season, but he also had many that were excellent. Protection and lack of quality targets, coupled with a short passing attack used to get the ball in Harvin's hands early, were contributing factors. Denying those were factors is a choice you're making independent of the reality of the situation.

The reality of the situation is that the 2012 Vikings had ZERO deep passing threat despite having a running back that forced single coverage on our wide receivers and TE's in most situations. Even accounting for the lack of superstar wide receivers on the roster, the lack of QB production is there for all to see in the numbers. Ponder is reluctant to throw deep, and for good reason.