vikings/nfl

The guy had a good game vs a mediocre football team. If Ponder lights it up vs 49ers and we win then, maybe I'll say he took a giant leap.

Everyday the Star Tribune writes an article about how good things are for a football team coming off a 3-13 season... Did the Vikings buy the sports section of the Strib?

So if Aromashadon't drops the ball then Ponder wouldn't have developed at all? His confidence would be shot? The game very easily could have resulted in a loss and frankly the kicker probably did more to secure that win than Christian Ponder did. It may never have gotten to overtime if the Jags hadn't dropped two passes Ponder threw to their defense.

Ponder may very well be the QB this team needs to fight back into the playoff picture in a couple years, but a few other things have to happen first. 1) The O-Line needs to gel. The 1st half last week.....Ponder looked bad because the line looked bad. Like a symphony, these 5-6 guys need to get on the same note, at which time Ponder can have the extra split second to make decisions without being rushed. 2) Frazier isn't a rocket scientist, and this could very well be the year in which Zygi goes and finds a higher caliber NFL coach. Frazier must be held to an 8-8 standard this year, or they need to look elsewhere. This team won't quit on him like they did Childress, but loyalties are fleeting, particularly for the older guys on the team. 3) We need to continue to build our deep game as a 3rd option (behind the 2 TE set and/or AP) to force defenses to not overplay any tendencies that show themselves in the first 3-4 games. Teams that study other teams in the first 3-4 weeks will always find 3-4 key tendencies to exploit, and while Ponder appears to be beyond getting 'suckered' by the likes of Woodson, we haven't played anyone yet where we know for sure he's gotten over his inability to get suckered in by All Pro DB's baiting him into throwing into a zone that they've left as a trap. Play action should expose those traps, but he still needs the extra time. My hunch is that the 2 tight end set will work the 1st half the season, then opponents will figure it out and we'll have a very "Twins Like" 2nd half. Season record 6-10 and Frazier....is GONE!!

Ponder claims he needed to play more angry, in the 1st half? Ummm, yeah. I think of a good QB playing calm and cool, so this angry comment was pretty much a joke. Fact is-he played horrible half of the game. Wasn't anything to do with his Anger level.

Wow, lots of Ponder hater's today. When they drafted him 12th overall it felt like someone slugged me in the gut. I thought he had bust written all over him. But he did look good last week when they opened up the offense a bit. Does anyone else remember a drive in the 1st half when the Vikes ran the ball on 1st, 2nd and 3rd down? And I think it was 3rd and 6 yards to go. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong or had one too many beers by then, but you can't blame Ponder for Musgrave's boring/predictable offensive schemes. We won't know how good Ponder is till Musgrave is gone. Anyone notice how much better Matt Ryan is WITHOUT Musgrave around? He went from a "game manager" to top 10 QB.

With ALL of the offensive weapons the Vikings have in their arsenal, they should EASILY be able to score ONE TOUCHDOWN PER QUARTER! It's REALLY not too much to expect, and it's up to Musgrave to put the plays in to make it work. This team SHOULD be able to have opposing defenses so worn out by the end of the first half, that they'd be too tired/too beaten to make any kind of effective adjustments for the second half. The tools are there... MUSGRAVE just needs to PUT THEN ALL TOGETHER - and, yes - then CP and company HAVE TO EXECUTE. On another note... Harvin is the MOST dangerous player on the offense... make sure he gets the ball as much as possible, while confusing the opposing 'D' with a mix-in of the other potent offensive weapons. With no disrespect to AP, Harvin is a BEAST! GO VIKINGS!!! P.S. Once again, on the 1 TD/quarter,... look at last year's schedule, and see what 1 TD/quarter would have accomplished. Let's Go OFFENSE, MAKE (at least), 1 TD/quarter - A GOAL!! You can't expect the 'D' to play the entire game for you!! GO VIKINGS!!!

It's funny how people state that it's no big deal because we beat a crappy team. Crappy team or not, they still had a better record than us last year. These "fans" want us to conveniently forget that the Jaguars were ranked 6th in total defense last year. Hopefully we can figure out and fix the slow start problem for the offense, but we racked up some pretty good yards for one half plus two minutes of the game against a very good defense. Time will tell whether it was a much improved Gabbert or a bad Vikings defense that allowed Gabbert to look good last Sunday. At the very least, our safeties were in the places they were supposed to be as opposed to last year. This bodes well for the secondary as Smith and Raymond will get better as they get more comfortable back there.

It's a bit unfair to blame last week's slow start on Ponder. On at least one drive, the Vikes went 3 and out- and all 3 were run plays! Also, I would quibble with the statement that he "Can't afford" another slow start at Indy. The Colts are awful, and if there's one team where the Vikes CAN afford to start slow against, it's the Colts.

Blaine Gabbert scored 21 fantasy pts, against our Vikings defense. So, you can imagine Luck is looking at having a much better week. It will be scary to see what Rodgers could do to our defense. Uggggggggg.