Week 3: Vikings’ QB Christian Ponder
Separating your sports website’s content from the millions of others is difficult. In order to separate ourselves, Sporting Sota is beginning a new weekly segment entitled, “Minnesota Sports: Bum of the Week”. Each week we will analyze every Minnesota athlete who performed, on and off the field, throughout the specified time frame and determine the player who had the worst week overall. Players will be judged week to week; a history of excellence will not be saving anyone.
Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to the Minnesota Sports: Bum of the Week from the week beginning on Monday September 29th, 2014 and ending on Sunday October 5th, 2014: Minnesota Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder.
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Introduction: The Vikings were absolutely destroyed by the Green Bay Packers this past Thursday at Lambeau Field. While few expected the Vikings to win, especially with Ponder under center instead of the injured Teddy Bridgewater; most believed the game would be (much) closer than it was. Players in nearly every phase of the game deserve blame for this loss. The offensive line, even center John Sullivan, was dreadful. With exception to cornerbacks Xavier Rhodes and (possibly) Josh Robinson, every player on the Vikings’ defense struggled. Through it all, however, one player stands out as the definitive bum of the bunch, and that is Ponder.
Why He is a Bum: Ponder, who actually has played some of his best football against the Packers throughout his career, was downright awful. He completed just 22 passes on 44 attempts, averaging five yards-per-play. He threw two interceptions and was sacked six times, which added up to a loss of 34 yards. Possibly the only positive in his performance was his eight-yard rushing touchdown when the game had long been decided. Most importantly, Ponder lost the support of his teammates. It, at the very least, appeared that his offensive line and receivers believed the Vikings did not have a chance to win this game with him at quarterback.
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Not a Bum Yet?: According to Pro Football Focus, Ponder received an overall grade of -4.3. As a whole, the Vikings’ offense received an overall grade of -17.0. Ponder not only accounted for 25.29-percent of this (awful) score, but was the lowest graded offensive player by a margin of 0.6. The only positive that can be said about his PFF grades is his +0.6 rushing grade, which, again, was a result of a garbage-time touchdown.
Still Not a Bum?: Ponder’s performance ranked 28th of 30 quarterbacks receiving grades. Only the horrible performances of Matthew Stafford (-4.7) and Michael Vick (-4.6) were worse. On top of being ranked 28th overall, his passing score (-4.6) was the overall worst, ranking 0.1 points ahead of Stafford and 1.5 points ahead of Jay Cutler. Finally, his quarterback rating (45.8) was the second worst only to Geno Smith in Week 5. Simply, it is not a good sign anytime a quarterback’s performance is in the same league as the 2014 version of Smith.
Conclusion: There is no Viking fan who was satisfied with the performance of Ponder or his team last week. Luckily, Mike Zimmer has already stated that Bridgewater will be back for Week 6 against the Detroit Lions. Ponder has likely played his last snap as a Viking and potentially in the NFL. While he likely will never be featured in this particular segment again, Ponder certainly earned and set a new bar for Minnesota Sports: Bum of the Week. Congratulations Christian, you are this week’s Minnesota Sports: Bum of the Week!
Other Bums Considered: None. The answer was definitive.