Stepping Away From The Ledge On Ponder

Folks… A lot of us are upset about the Christian Ponder pick. You could easily argue that we didn’t get the best value at #12 for him when most “mocks” and “experts” had Ponder going in the late first. That all changed though this morning with the king of mock drafts Rick “The Goose” Gosselin of The Dallas Morning News had Ponder going 10th overall to the Redskins with Andy Dalton going 12th overall to the Vikings. No one believed that 5 QBs would go in the top 12. Gosselin is so respected as an insider that the Las Vegas odds for the Over/Under on QBs drafted in the 1st round went from 2.5 to 3.5 just today. For those keeping score at home, you have a 40% Vegas swing off of one column. And now those that bet the over are probably paying for a steak dinner tonight with 4 QBs already off the board. You just don’t mess with The Goose.

Lets rationalize a little bit rather than jumping off the ledge on the Ponder pick. A good friend texted me within the last hour “I was giddy when the Vikings took Troy Williamson. And when we took Adrian Peterson I just wondered why with Chester Taylor being our best offensive player.” I can relate to that. And now how do we feel about Troy and Adrian? Do we even need to have this conversation?

What is known now is we’re getting a great leader who has a solid head on his shoulders. He has a quick release, tremendous mechanics, good footwork, above average arm strength, is familiar with a pro style offense and can read a defense. There will also never be doubts if he’s putting in the hours required to be an NFL QB, nor will he keep Leslie Frazier or Rick Spielman up at night with worries that a feature player on our team is out causing trouble (are you listening Everson Griffen and Chris Cook?). In spite of Ponder having an injury riddled senior year (where he had a top ten grade at the beginning of the season) he was the MVP of the Senior Bowl, was the best QB at the combine and it’s also worth noting that Wes Bunting of the National Football Post had him as the #1 QB in this class. 3 years from now if Ponder is the best QB in the draft we’ll all be laughing about today. At least that’s what we hope for. Emotions are a beautiful part of being a sports fan with the knee-jerk reactions oftentimes more wrong than right.

So Christian… Lead us to The Promised Land. You at least have one supporter here.

Jon Merckle may be followed on Twitter @thevikingpig