VikingLord wrote:That isn't to say he's done a poor overall job of that, either. He *has* made a lot of solid decisions and been accurate in most cases. But... his completion percentage is trending down despite the low YPA.
I think some of that is due to his increased willingness to throw the ball away. His completion percentage is trending down but he was sacked 6 times in the first two games and just twice in the last two. He's faced better defenses the past two weeks than he did in the first two as well.
Those short little wingers to Harvin are going to become harder to complete, much less count on Harvin to turn them into 15-20 YAC yards. There are going to be more DE's who hang back on a rush looking for a ball to be thrown in that lane when Harvin is on their side of the field. Ponder and Musgrave are going to have to adjust, and soon, or I wouldn't be shocked to see Ponder put up a 3+ INT performance soon.
I think they'll adjust, although they aren't going to abandon those plays altogether. They were clearly making an effort to get the ball up the field to Simpson last week in his debut and I suspect we'll see more of that, and more passes to the TEs and backs, in the coming weeks. If they can find some success doing those things, it will make it harder for teams to take Harvin away.
I may be in the minority but I think Musgrave is attempting a balancing act so far this season. He's trying to use a short passing game to hide shortcomings in the offense, not just the QB. The approach helps minimize mistakes as Ponder develops but, just as importantly, it covers up for some inadequacies that still exist up front and it's helped the offense move the ball through the first 3 games despite a lack of downfield speed. I know the general feeling is the o-line has improved and Kalil is definitely an upgrade at LT but if the Indy game was any indication, the line may still not be ready to block too many slow-developing pass plays.
The Vikes have to mix it up more in the passing game and they probably need to do that this week if they want to move to 4-1. However, if/when they do, don't be surprised if they do so cautiously. Otherwise, I think we'll see Ponder getting hit more and we'll see more turnovers too. As the passing game develops and improves, I suspect the Vikings are going to lean on their running game and defense as much as possible to keep games close and try to make enough plays in the passing game (and on special teams) to win. It's not the high-flying approach a lot of people want to see but it may be a smart approach for this particular team at this time. It's worked in 3 of 4 games anyway... the key is not to get so conservative that it becomes detrimental. They definitely can't allow their average yards per pass play to continue declining. It needs to start trending upward again.
They make their living out of analyzing games and players. They certainly do not watch every game and every play but you would be mistaken to believe that they only watch maybe two games every Sunday and try to make informed decisions and comments about players and teams. I do not think that they would be employed very long without hours of watching film and studying the game and its players.
