Ponder vs. Cassell

[Mothman]

I've heard Jennings say this a couple of times now, and the more he says it the more I'm reading it to mean Jennings is encouraging Ponder to throw it into tighter windows and give his receivers a chance to make plays. I think Ponder went through a phase last year where he was extremely risk-averse. Jennings wants Ponder to take more chances and hopefully Ponder is gaining the experience and trust in his own ability to read situations where he'll start doing that more, because I think pro QB's just don't get a lot of "safe" throws or obvious situations. For Ponder to succeed he's going to have to be willing to take more risk, and, of course, his receivers are sometimes going to have to bail him out of those riskier throws.

He took quite a few risks last year but let's face it, when he did take chances, there wasn't a lot of bailing out going on. As someone else pointed out earlier, Ponder wasn't given much reason to trust most of his receivers last season and he also took a few chances that just turned out to be bad ideas and led to INTs.

As Jennings notes - he just has to throw it and trust that his receiver is going to battle for that ball.

I don't think it's quite as simple as that sounds (and I'm sure you understand that). He has to take some chances but he can't just keep chucking it to covered receivers. I realize it's a fine line and in the NFL, receivers don't always get open by a substantial margin but they still need to get open. Throwing too many passes into coverage and counting on receivers to battle for the ball is a recipe for turnovers, especially if battling for the ball isn't a strength of those receivers.

In the end, it's about the QB and receivers getting to know each other, developing timing, chemistry and trust and the only way to do that is through repetition in games and practice. The more Ponder plays with his receivers, the more he'll get a feel for what they can do and what they can't and that should help him judge when to give them a chance and when to just tuck and run or throw the ball away.

[hibbingviking]

i hope ponder and cassell compete like Michael vick and nick foles. competition is healthy. don't hand the starting job over too ponder.

[dead_poet]

i hope ponder and cassell compete like Michael vick and nick foles. competition is healthy. don't hand the starting job over too ponder.

It's Ponder's to lose. Cassell was told, explicitly, that Ponder was the starter. There's no competition. A QB change won't be made until at least week 4 if Ponder just faceplants.