Let Us Please Waste No More Time Talking About Joe Webb

Jan 5, 2013; Green Bay, WI, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Joe Webb (14) runs onto the field prior to the first quarter of the NFC Wild Card playoff game at Lambeau Field. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

It has happened again. Joe Webb has somehow become a topic of conversation in Viking Nation. It’s the usual stuff. The Vikings are going to try Joe Webb at receiver…again. They have plenty of quarterbacks now, you see. But Joe is such a great talent. They do not want to waste him. They are going to find some way to get him on the field.

Could we please just stop with this stuff now? Let me say it for the very last time: Joe Webb will never contribute as a receiver. He will never contribute as a kick returner either. Leslie Frazier has already made it clear the Vikings want to use Cordarrelle Patterson on kick returns. Does anyone here see Joe Webb returning punts?

Yes I know, Joe is an athlete. He can run. He can jump high. Hey…maybe try him out at cornerback. Oh wait, you have to be able to do other football-related things in order to play cornerback. Like tackle. And catch.

Why do we dwell on this topic at all? Anyone with any sense knows where this is headed. The Vikings will try Webb at receiver for awhile and will once again realize that he can’t play receiver. But this time there will be no return to quarterback for Webb. The Vikings have their back-up in Matt Cassel. They have their #3 in McLeod Bethel-Thompson. No room for Webb. So this time he will be cut.

Right now I would say Webb has maybe a 5% chance of making the roster. That’s possibly optimistic. Why we spend so much time discussing the prospects of a marginal player is beyond me. For some reason, some fans are just fixated on the idea that Webb can be some multi-faceted x-factor weapon. They got that idea in their brains once upon a time and can’t dislodge it.

But that doesn’t explain why the Vikings keep going back to that well. My suspicion is that the Vikings are not actually sincere about giving Webb another shot at receiver. I think they are just placating the fans again. They know Webb is popular and they don’t want to look like they are just dumping him. They already took enough heat over Percy Harvin and Antoine Winfield. So they will go through the farce of pretending they want to try Webb at receiver. And somewhere in preseason they will cut him and that will be that.

I look forward to the day when I never have to write or think about Joe Webb again. Nothing against the guy personally. But this nonsense has dragged on far too long. Rick Spielman, stop the madness.

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