I appreciate the effort you put into that long post and I doubt you'll like what I have to say in this one but I'm sorry, I don't buy that "one of the most characteristic attributes of Bad Ponder was his fear of throwing the ball downfield and these stats back that up". Ponder was still willing to throw the ball downfield during the "Bad Ponder" period you mentioned, particularly against TB, but for various reasons, a lot of those plays weren't effective. Completion and yardage stats aren't going to reveal anything about the distance of attempts. I don't think there was any fear of passing downfield. I believe the Vikes backed away from it a little because it wasn't working and they were struggling in protection.
Where you really lost me was with the talk about the impact of expectations and this:
As for our win against the Lions, we won by 10 points, and Blair Walsh nailed a whopping 4 field goals. This was the theme during this time. Guys making plays to keep us in the game and Ponder doing absolutely nothing or costing us the game.
In that Detroit game where "Bad Ponder" apparently continued a theme of doing "absolutely nothing" and the Vikings supposedly won on the strength of Walsh's kicking, Ponder completed 75% of the 32 passes he attempted for 221 yards and 2 TDs. His rating that day was 114.2 and by dismissively lumping that game in with some of his poor performances and de-emphasizing his contribution in favor of Walsh's FGs, you undermine the credibility of your position.
Regarding the idea that expectations cracked Ponder: I suppose that could have been a factor but I think what really started the slump was the Redskins' pressure and the Cardinals' manhandling of the Vikes o-line the following week. Defenses figured out that the Vikes couldn't handle the blitz and if they took away the short stuff to Harvin and Rudolph, the Vikes were really going to struggle to pass the ball. Over 4 consecutive weeks, we saw Washington, Arizona, Tampa Bay and Seattle blitz the life out of the Vikes passing game and beat up their QB. Ponder was sacked 14 times in those 4 games and I think
that got into his head. He also appeared to lose confidence (or at least poise) and he started forcing passes he wasn't forcing earlier (or late) in the season.
This idea that Ponder withers under national attention just doesn't hold any water for me. It's far too simplistic and it ignores too much of what was actually happening
on the field, around the QB. When teams do a poor job of protecting their QB and they don't have good deep threats, their passing game, particularly their deep passing game suffers. When they have a young QB who has a tendency to make throws off his back foot or to force the ball into coverage when pressured, that just makes things worse. When they resolve some of those issues (Wright proved a better deep threat than anyone Ponder was throwing to early in the season, the pass protection improved) then things start to go better. I'm not suggesting psychology plays no role in a QB's performance and as I said earlier, I think confidence was an issue for Ponder at one point last season. However, when I just watch the games and look at what's happening in a
football sense, not a "fanalytical", psychological sense, I see enough football issues, issues on the field, to explain most of what went wrong for Ponder last season. Whatever was going on in his head was a factor too but with other problems apparent to the eye, I just don't think it makes sense to say ponder simply withered under expectations and I'm not worried about him doing so in the future.
If Ponder gets good protection, if he does a better job of setting his feet and using proper throwing mechanics, if his receivers get open when they're
supposed to and help him out when plays break down, I suspect he will be just fine. If the Vikes start allowing 14 sacks in 4 games again in 2013, there are going to be serious problems.
seems like he is always banged up. 
