Confidence in Christian Part II

[smoothoperator]

Everyone's opinion is just going to continue to change game to game. Ponder did well after a poor first quarter. He ended up with a real nice game, 20-27 for 270 is solid. Sure he didnt have the tds, but thats because we gave it to ap in the red zone. Ponder is showing promise, especially when the pressure is on, which i like. But I would like to see our offense get into a rhythm early to prevent those scenarios.

i remain optimistic he can continue to develop into our qb for quite some time. i think when simpson is back and the OC realizes that when we give the ball to our best players, the offense opens up and the momentum shifts to our favor, both on offense and defense.

[saint33]

Now this is funny. Ponder had a halfway decent game, and 1 excellent drive, and now people like Saint want to place a crown on his head. 1 game. And we just barely won, and wouldnt have if we didnt actually go out and get a real kicker.

Lets wait til he plays a road game and division rival before ya get too excited.

I put a crown on his head?

[Crax]

I put a crown on his head?

Not only did you do it, you did it Dennis Green style!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmQbk5h86w

[vikeinmontana]

ponder had more yards than sanchez, shaub, roethisberger, manning, brady, rivers, eli, and about 15 other starters.

he had a higher completion % than every qb in the league not names romo, brady, ryan, or alex smith.

he didn't have any td's but he didn't turn the ball over which is more than newton(2), brees(2), stafford(3) and vick(4) can say.

and his team won the game which at the present time, roethisberger, cassell, eli, rodgers, newton, brees, etc. can't say the same.

i missed the post where anyone was crowning ponder. i just fail to see how this was a poor performance and doesn't show signs of improvement.

[The Breeze]

ponder had more yards than sanchez, shaub, roethisberger, manning, brady, rivers, eli, and about 15 other starters.

he had a higher completion % than every qb in the league not names romo, brady, ryan, or alex smith.

he didn't have any td's but he didn't turn the ball over which is more than newton(2), brees(2), stafford(3) and vick(4) can say.

and his team won the game which at the present time, roethisberger, cassell, eli, rodgers, newton, brees, etc. can't say the same.

i missed the post where anyone was crowning ponder. i just fail to see how this was a poor performance and doesn't show signs of improvement.

methinks you are not the one who is failing here......

[dead_poet]

A couple of interesting nuggets here.

Christian Ponder must "play almost mad" for Vikings to get off to a fast start

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Chri ... tart091212

[vikeinmontana]

simple solution....

tell him to read this board all week.

if that doesn't work, let him read the in-game thread while our defense is on the field. that should do it.

[Mothman]

ponder had more yards than sanchez, shaub, roethisberger, manning, brady, rivers, eli, and about 15 other starters.

he had a higher completion % than every qb in the league not names romo, brady, ryan, or alex smith.

he didn't have any td's but he didn't turn the ball over which is more than newton(2), brees(2), stafford(3) and vick(4) can say.

He turned it over on a fumble but not an INT, although he came close to doing the latter early in the game. Nevertheless, your overall point is valid. Once Ponder settled in, he played very well. I hope he can build on it.

[Mothman]

A couple of interesting nuggets here.

Christian Ponder must "play almost mad" for Vikings to get off to a fast start

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Chri ... tart091212

Thanks for the link. Ponder sounds very determined.

I loved this part:

"We had a dummy cadence and I was keying the backside safety, and he looked like he was staying Cover-2 during the dummy cadence," Ponder said. "After the snap of the ball, they rotated to single-high, and I just made a bad assumption that they were staying in Cover-2 and immediately looked at the linebackers to make my read.

"My lesson learned is always keep the eyes on the safeties, because those are the guys that tell the truth and everybody else lies. I've got to do a better job of that."

[The Breeze]

A couple of interesting nuggets here.

Christian Ponder must "play almost mad" for Vikings to get off to a fast start

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Chri ... tart091212

great tidbits there.

i really believe this offense will thrive on pace and cadence. they need to be aggressive early to get defenses back on their heels and guessing. they have the athletes to do this with AP, Harvin and Rudolph...even Ponder can eat up big chunks of yards with his legs. it's good to see him thinking this way. if the o-line keeps arcing upward, we will have a really good idea of what Ponder can do before very long. personally i think he has all the tools and talent. this is actually an exciting season from my POV.

[J. Kapp 11]

No, my DVR records entire games. It doesn't edit out the happy feet for all of the first half but two minutes so all I see is duckies and bunnies. A game is 60 minutes. He was terrible for almost half of it. Against a terrible team. Without their starting middle linebacker, and a starting cornerback.

He looked much better the second half. Which also included some pretty amazing play by AD and Harvin. Especially on those 1 yard passes that go for 10+.

He's showed flashes in the past. Let's see if he can keep it up...against another bad team. On the road, which should give us a better idea where he's at. And week three he'll get a real test. If he can look halfway decent against the 49ers then maybe we can tap the purple keg. Even if we don't win the game, it'll be a great gauge especially coming off of these two games when his confidence should be sky high, and a game at home.

It all comes down to what you choose to concentrate on, I guess. And this is where, admittedly, I fall flat on my face.

You concentrate on happy feet. And y'know, I gotta hand it to you. That kind of ability -- to exhibit laser focus on the negative aspects of Ponder's first seven passes -- well, it's a gift.

My perspective, flawed and positive as it may be, is that Ponder hit 74 percent of his passes and won the game.

(WTF? Did he just say "won the game"?)

I just can't help myself. I mean, I give young Mr. Walsh all kinds of credit -- it was a great, clutch kick. I'm glad we have him. But I just keep thinking -- without those 3 happy-foot completions in 14 seconds to get in field goal range, the Vikings prolly lose.

Pure Kool-Aid, I know. Please bear with me. I'm working on being more negative.

[Demi]

you mean like the 6th best defense in the league from last year? Or the 8th ranked pass defense from last year (despite only have one of it's starting CBs for 6 games, and the other for 9)? Oh right, that just happened this weekend.

Which gave up the 4th highest completion percentage. Because the team overall is complete trash. And they only had one of their starting cornerbacks for THIS game? Missing their starting middle linebacker as well. So probably two of their best what, 3 players? Were inactive? But I'M the disingenuous one?

i just fail to see how this was a poor performance and doesn't show signs of improvement.

I don't think ANYONE is saying it was a poor performance. The difference in opinion appears to be whether or not one good half makes up for the other. And if one good half against a terrible team is an indication of a quarterbacks growth. And if a single game against a bad team at home should be used as a sign of ANYTHING. The same nonsense was used to defense TJoke after any competent performance of his.

IF Ponder actually has a good game against the 49ers I have no doubt there will be someone who decides to diminish that by write it off as a fluke, focusing on any mistakes made, etc.

Funny, just like IF Ponder has a bad game against the 49ers I have no doubt there will be five times as many "someones" who decide to write it off as a fluke, focus on anything positive he does, point out how good the opposing team is etc. And look back at the previous two games as proof positive he's not the QB they saw in the 49ers game. But the one he saw in the game against the two bottom 5 teams. Despite using said defense to savage a cross town rivals performance three weeks earlier.

Why do we have to concentrate on anything? Take the game as a whole. He had a little over a good half, against a bad team. Made a few very good throws. And made a few very bad reads and decisions. Overall he had a good game, showed some flashes, but was still inconsistent over the course of a game. And I wasn't hand picking the "best" defense to use as an indication, I was using the first team we play that was any good. But since using that as an indication is asking too much, unlike using this Jaguars game, let's give him *another* week against what should be a solid team in the Lions, a quarter of the way into the season enough? Or are they too good too?

[Mothman]

Why do we have to concentrate on anything? Take the game as a whole. He had a little over a good half, against a bad team. Made a few very good throws. And made a few very bad reads and decisions. Overall he had a good game, showed some flashes, but was still inconsistent over the course of a game. And I wasn't hand picking the "best" defense to use as an indication, I was using the first team we play that was any good. But since using that as an indication is asking too much, unlike using this Jaguars game, let's give him *another* week against what should be a solid team in the Lions, a quarter of the way into the season enough? Or are they too good too?

Why target one particular game as a measurement at all, whether it's against the Lions, 49ers, Jaguars or Colts? There's no need to rush to judgment when we're talking about a player playing the most difficult position in the game with less than even one full season's worth of starts. Is it so hard to just take the good with the bad and evaluate Ponder's overall performance and progress at the end of the season? If we can take the game as a whole, why not take the season as a whole too?

Regarding this last game: inconsistency over the course of a game is common at the NFL level and it's not unusual for even the most accomplished of QBs. QBs strive for perfection and many fans demand it but it's rare. As you said, overall Ponder had a good game so why repeatedly diminish his performance? Maybe Jacksonville will be a bad team again this year but Jacksonville was the only team Ponder could play against last weekend and he played well. After one week, he has a top 10 in QBR and he was instrumental in leading the Vikes to come-from-behind victory. That's good news so again, why diminish the performance?

[Demi]

That's good news so again, why diminish the performance?

Because it wasn't just "good news". It was a come from behind victory in part because of Ponder himself. Four drives without a score. Four drives where he looked completely lost and made a number of bonehead decisions. If you're going to discuss the performance can we at least be honest about it? There were good parts, and bad parts. I'm acknowledging both...that is "diminishing the performance"?

[Purple bruise]

Because it wasn't just "good news". It was a come from behind victory in part because of Ponder himself. Four drives without a score. Four drives where he looked completely lost and made a number of bonehead decisions. If you're going to discuss the performance can we at least be honest about it? There were good parts, and bad parts. I'm acknowledging both...that is "diminishing the performance"?

Because there seems to be no end to this with you and just for my own information could you put into column A pluses (if any) about Ponder and column B negatives ie. noodle arm, too short, not strong enough etc etc. I just can't comprehend why you dislike this kid so much. And I can do without any more of your comments directed at me about how I love him and want to have his children.
Let's be serious and truly get to the bottum of this.