December 2, 2012; Green Bay, WI, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder (7) walks off the field after game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. The Packers beat the Vikings 23-14. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-US PRESSWIRE

My first and main reason to support Christian Ponder is that he is Rick Spielman’s Quarterback, and he is going to get every chance possible to play so we may as well support him to see if he can turn it around. We have heard all season that despite Ponders troubles everyone in the organization is firmly behind the incumbent QB.  We have also heard all through this season that Spielman favors a 3 year plan when it comes to assessing quarterbacks. Which means Ponder is going to have the rest of the season as the starting QB and he is almost certainly going to start the 2013 NFL season as the Vikings starting QB.  The only other possibility to contradict that would be for the Vikings to fire Leslie Frazier this off-season, and for his replacement to push for his own guy.

My second reason to support Christian Ponder is that apart from Adrian Peterson and Percy Harvin, Ponder has a weak cast around him.  Kyle Rudolph has played well the last few games but still has problems getting separation.  Apart from those three players the rest of the Vikings options are as follows:

-Jerome Simpson

-Michael Jenkins

-Stephen Burton

-Devin Aromashodu

-John Carlson

-Jarius Wright (who has shown some promise)

Those options don’t read well do they?

This season was never supposed to amount to much for the Vikings after going 3-13 in 2011, which is why the Vikings never really invested in its receivers. I like many Vikings fans find that particularly infuriating considering they are trying to give Ponder every chance to succeed. In 2013 the Vikings are going to have to make some moves in this area, or they are setting up Ponder to fail.

Many of Christian Ponders criticisms are justifiable, he has shown poor accuracy, he has shown poor judgement, and he certainly has shown he does have a lack of awareness at times but he still has a lot of upside as shown earlier in the season. Christian Ponder for the foreseeable future is going to get every chance to become the Vikings franchise quarterback, whether he can grasp that opportunity or not is down to him and the players the Vikings surround him with. I am of the mind-set that Vikings fans should be behind Ponder as no matter what happens, he is not going to be benched for Joe Webb. But I am aware many will disagree with me, what are your thoughts? Let me know.

Follow Scott on Twitter Here:

Oct 21, 2012; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson (28) looks to the stands as he leaves the field following the victory over the Arizona Cardinals at the Metrodome. The Vikings win 21-14. Mandatory Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-US PRESSWIRE

Okay so the Vikings won against the Cardinals to go 5-2 on the season. Any win is good, even is its winning while not playing well. But this was a poor game and the Vikings have to improve in some areas if they want to make a push at the play-offs and not fall back into past habits. These are my Positives and Negatives from today’s game.

Positives

Adrian Peterson

AP was simply awesome in this game. He ran the ball 23 times for 153 yards and a TD, that’s an average of 6.7 yards per carry. All against a Cardinals defense that has been consistently tough on the run all year. Without AP the Vikings simply don’t win this game. He needed to have a big performance and he did.

Oh and in the post-game interview he said that he’s still lacking some of his explosiveness. Good to hear for Vikes fans after a 153 yard performance, but I doubt the Cardinals will be too happy with that quote.

Percy Harvin

Percy had a quiet game by his MVP caliber standards but he still came up big when he was needed. He had 4 catches for 37 yards and a TD. Being covered by Patrick Peterson is certainly one of the reasons we saw less of Percy than in previous weeks, another reason being that Christian Ponder was totally inept at doing anything other than handing the ball of to AP.

Defense

The Defense played pretty well against a terrible Cardinals offense. John Skelton was terrible as can only be expected. The defense did give up two TD’s, one after Christian Ponder went into self-destruct mode throwing an INT inside the Vikings 20 yards line, and the other whilst in soft coverage with Arizona in the two minute drill. Harrison Smith came up big with a pick-6 early on in the second half and Brian Robison had a sack/fumble recovered by Kevin Williams prior to Ponders first pick. The defense came away with 7 sacks while only allowing the Cardinals to convert 5/14 3rd downs and stopped both 4^th down attempts.

Special Teams

The special teams unit performed capably in this game. Percy broke one on the opening kick-off that went to the house, only to be called back for an illegal block in the back. Chris Kluwe and the punt coverage team were impressive in not allowing Patrick Peterson the opportunity to get any significant returns, his longest return being 6 yards. Blair Walsh had 4 Kick-Off’s with 3 touchbacks to continue his impressive start to his rookie season.

Offensive Line

For the most part the offensive line stood up well to the Arizona defense allowing 3 sacks. Matt Kalil continued to look impressive at LT and played well. The line also did well in opening up big holes in the defense for Adrian to exploit.

Negatives

Christian Ponder

I will start off by saying I am a fan of Christian Ponder I think he has the potential to be the Vikings starter for years to come, but that being said he has to go back to where he was at the start of the season and not turn the ball over. This is the third week in a row where Ponder has thrown 2 INT’s in a game. That after not throwing any picks in his first 4 games. This is a worrying trend, and a trend that has to be stopped. Yes this Vikings team are 5-2 and yes nobody really expected us to be in this position 7 games in, but this team will not be able to sustain its current form if ball security does not improve, especially now that the schedule is getting tougher.

Ponder went 8/17 for 58 yards, 1TD and 2INT’s. Those numbers aren’t good anyway you look at them and won’t win any of his doubters over. He can blame the picks on his footwork etc all he wants but if he doesn’t improve things could get real bad, real fast.

Receivers (Not Including Percy Harvin)

The receivers did a poor job of getting open today, Jerome Simpson had an 8 yard catch and drew a pass interference penalty on the defense early on then almost disappeared from the game. When you factor in the receptions that didn’t go to Harvin or Simpson, the rest of the receptions (all 3 of them) went to Adrian Peterson (2) and Michael Jenkins (1) for a combined total of 13 yards. Yes Ponder had a poor game but he had very little help.

Bill Musgrave/Leslie Frazier

Up until the final Viking drive of the first half I felt the play calling was good. The Vikings went 2/2 in the red zone scoring 2 TD’s. Then Musgrave and Frazier had some sort of joint brain fart and kept calling pass plays even with the Vikings backed up in their own half with time running out. Not to mention the Vikings had a timeout at their disposal that should have been used if they were serious about putting a drive together. Instead Ponder was told to pass the ball which ended in him throwing a pick that would have cost the Vikings 3 points, had Jay Feely not missed the Field Goal. Then in the second half Ponder was kept throwing the ball despite incompletion after incompletion and despite the Vikings running backs doing well. I would have liked to have seen some more of Toby Gerhart. It gives Toby extra reps, keeps the clock ticking and gives AP a rest with the Vikings on a short week with a Thursday night game.

Having pointed out the negatives from the game, the Vikings are still 5-2 and play Tampa Bay on Thursday night at the Dome.  I’ll take it. Skol Vikes.

Scott can be followed on twitter here

This week could prove to be a pivotal week in the NFC North, a week that could have huge implications for all teams involved (Chicago is on its bye week). The reason being that all three teams from the division playing this week have difficult away games against good football teams. Usually as a football fan (and especially as a Vikings fan) I take it one week and one game at a time and mostly just focus on our games. However having looked at the Vikings schedule and seeing all of the divisional games and the away trips to St Louis and Houston dominating the end of the schedule, it’s hard to doubt that distancing ourselves as far away from the rest of the pack now would be a major advantage to the Vikes.

Oct 7, 2012; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Percy Harvin (12) runs for a 10 yard touchdown during the third quarter against the Tennessee Titans at the Metrodome. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-US PRESSWIRE

The (4-1) Vikings travel to the (2-3) Redskins, a team much improved from last season but currently are on an 8 game home losing streak.  The Redskins may or may not have RG3 available after he was knocked out of last week’s game with a mild concussion.  Whether he is able to play or not will have a huge effect on this game.

The (2-3) Packers travel to the (5-0) Houston Texans with injuries to key players (B.J. Raji, Cedric Benson, Jermichael Finley and Greg Jennings) Unless the Packers can come up with a win their hopes of winning the division could take a massive hit just 6 games into the season.

The (1-3) Lions travel to Philadelphia (3-2) coming off their Bye week, if the Lions lose another game and slip to 1-4 their season could curtail somewhere ugly considering they were tipped by many to be in the play-offs come January.

If the Vikings can pull off a win at FedEx Field and return to Minnesota at 5-1 they could realistically be 3 games ahead of both the Packers and the Lions only 6 weeks into the season, while also putting pressure on Chicago coming off their bye week behind the Vikings in the division. Not to mention the two following games for the Vikings are both at home. A very interesting time to be a Vikings fan.

Follow Scott on Twitter