Backup puts the Pack up: Packers ease past Webb, Vikings
January 5, 2013 at 6:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
NFL PLAYOFFS: Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers showed how dangerous they can be when they’re at full strength Saturday night, overwhelming the Minnesota Vikings 24-10 in an NFC wild-card game that was never really close. Continue Reading
Joe Webb not ready for prime time. Not that I’ll be rooting for SF next Sunday, but I would NEVER cheer for the packers.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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LoL. HAHAAHAHAHA. Duh. LOL
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The Vikings really screwed their fans by waiting until the last minute to disclose Ponder’s injury. Can you imagine spending a thousand bucks on tickets, travel and hotel to Green Bay only to hear at game time that Webb is the starter.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Screwed their fans? They didn’t know how well his arm would recover throughout the week. Thanks for showing us how shallow your fandom really is.
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Per Star Tribune: Unwelcome surprise: Vikings players react to Christian Ponder’s injury
The biggest surprise of the first day of the NFL playoffs came 90 minutes before the Vikings kicked off at Lambeau Field. That’s when 16-game starter Christian Ponder was declared inactive, too bothered by a stiff and bruised throwing arm to get the green light for Saturday’s game.
Like the rest of the country, many of the Vikings players said they had no idea Joe Webb would be their starting quarterback until they were inside of 2 hours before kickoff.
“I didn’t know at all,” cornerback Antoine Winfield said. “Until I saw Joe out there warming up. That’s when I knew.”
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Umm… Ever heard of the term “Game-Time decision”? They did not screw the fans, they have been telling us all week that Ponder might not play.
They talked about his injury after the game last week, then said he was limited in practice on Wednesday. Then said he was “Highly limited” on Thursday. Then they downgraded him to “questionable” status on Friday. On Saturday morning, they stated that Joe Webb got all the first-team snaps for the week and that Ponder would be a game-time decision.
Then during game-time warmups it was determined he could not get enough velocity on the ball due to his bursitis. As soon as the Coach knew Ponder couldn’t play, we knew. Same goes for Antoine, he found out when the coach and the rest of the world found out.
You just were not paying attention.
http://www.rotoworld.com/recent/nfl/6433/christian-ponder
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The Vikings really need to draft a franchise QB. Ponder doesn’t cut it and please release Webb.
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Much as Ponder may not be the Vikings’ answer, I realistically think we don’t have much choice to stick with him a while longer. Since the Vikings made the post-season and bowed out in the first round, they will draft somewhere between 21st-24th. I don’t see anyone that would be a franchise QB being available at that point. I think trading up to try to pick one would cost them too much. I also don’t see them looking to the free agent market with the wounds of the Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb busts still too fresh. Unfortunately, they lost their best chance at a big name QB last season when they kept AP in that meaningless game against Washington, lost him to the ligament injury, and still managed to win and do just well enough to put us behind Indianapolis and Washington in the draft order. Not that Andrew Luck or RG3 made it any farther in this year’s post season, and taking Kalil certainly helped the offensive line, but that would have been the Vikings’ chance to get an elite player in that position. I think the Vikings should stick with their first round pick or maybe move up if the price is right and go for a capable wide receiver. It’s also a big need for the team, and there are usually good receivers available in the late 1st round (remember we took Randy Moss at #21 overall in 1998). With a strong running game and a defense that kept them in a lot of games, even some improvement to the passing game would be a boost.
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The dust is barely settled from the Rube herd stampeding away from the “Bench Ponder, start Webb” bandwagon. Now we will hear the “Let’s trade a pair of shoulder pads and a third string player for Tom Brady” chatter begin. Fact is good starting QBs are very hard to find. Ones that may be available this year are gng to be guys just like Ponder, guys who weren’t able to convince their teams they were the best option. Matt Flynn, Mark Sanchez are two high priced options, but the vikes will have to probably give up a high round draft pick to get them. And there will be others, but the vikes in he last coul of years look to be building through the drat and from the inside. Either way, this was a great year and I look forward to 2013.
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Webb was hardly impressive but I don’t put all the blame on him. The play calling was horrendous, absolutely inexcusable. They took Webb’s skills out of the game after the first drive, which incidentally had worked! Typical Musgrave. Frazier’s refusal to let Webb play all year long even when Ponder was ineffective and games were out of reach has now come back to roost. I find it amusing and possibly racist that people think Webb doesn’t deserve a chance just because he played a bad game, when Ponder has played many more bad games. And lastly, I find it amusing that people think Webb played a bad game while stil supporting Ponder, even though Webb had a much better game than many of Ponders this year! He quadrupled the yardage that Ponder had while people kept chanting “he just needs more time, he’s only started 15 games”. But Webb somehow doesn’t deserve more time, after starting 3 games, one of them after not throwing a pass in 2 years.
Yes we need to find a better QB, but Musgrave is the only goat here.
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Possibly racist? Wow.
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There is a lot of that in football, so he is not out of line in thinking that. But we should leave race out of it.
Webb is a physical freak who has a strong arm, but he is not a good Quarterback. That is why he wasn’t starting, that is why he won’t start. If he was good enough to start, he would have replaced Ponder at some point.
I love Webb, I think he is a great guy and I would love to see him take this team to the Super Bowl. But the fact that he cannot complete more than 37% of his passes when the opponents have not been able to prepare for him tells me that he has not made much progression in his three years in the league.
We shouldn’t give up on him, but there are not any indicators that he is better than Ponder.
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Um, you can hardly trust coaches who coach THAT bad, namely Musgrave. Not putting Webb in all year doesnt mean Webb wasn’t ready, it is just another arrow in Musgrave’s quiver of incompetence.
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Wow. Racist? If you want to go there, I say the NFL is racist against the wide receiver position. There are far more African Americans playing the wide receiver position than Whites. While were at it, the NBA is also racist.
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Musgrave had some great game plans. Got a lot out of Peterson and had some creative opening sequences that led to opening drive scores in the last 4 or 5 games. Ponder by finishing strong will continue to progress. A couple more weapons then let’s talk. Look at the Packers. How many quality options does that guy have?
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Ponder’s second year stats stack up with many now respected qb’s. Next year with a healthy Harvin, a maybe healthier and better Simpson, Jarius and a couple new additions if he doesn’t progress then they have to bring someone in. I think he will. Impatience has cost us in the past; Rich Gannon.
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This is just a shame. We weren’t the only ones though. Look at what happened to the Redskins RG3. Luck didn’t have a good day either. Anyway, that being said, I believe we need to find a better QB and have Ponder as a backup. Why not try Webb as a WR since his abilities seem best suited to that. Kayak man, possibly racist? What does race have to do with anything? Maybe, just maybe, the staff evaluated the abilities of the 2 during practice and saw something that made them make that decision. Will any of us ever truly know? Keep in mind that some of our most respected and loved players are black like Winfield, Harvin, and ESPECIALLY Adrian Peterson ( Even the Packers team acknowledges this). We just had a bad day is all, just like the Colts and Redskins. Given the weakness of the QB position, the Packers defense decided they could afford to put their FULL ON attention on Peterson because they see him as a threat, which he is.
We still did ok though considering we were 3-13 last year. NO ONE thought we would be anywhere close to 10-7 this year, so that is a a pretty good improvement.
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Here is to hoping that AD beats Dickerson’s record next year! Could easily happen
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With the O-line we have now and a potentially better Passing game next year, he certainly could.
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I mentioned racist because the same people who think Ponder needs more time think Webb should be dumped, even when Webb outperforms Ponder. Webb threw for 180 yards
and ran for 60 more in his only start, a cold start in a playoff game. How many times this year did Ponder gain 240 yards? I cant fathom any other reason why people would not think Webb deserves at least half the chance Ponder has gotten, when he clearly is no worse and clearly has some things Ponder doesn’t.
I don’t want to overstate how good Webb is, I think we need to get a real QB. I just don’t see why Ponder deserves anything. In his most vastly improved game of the season, Ponder was only average. He only looked good because he was so GD awful before, every bit as bad as Webb.
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Actually, the real mistake was getting rid of Sage Rosenfels. I knew this would come back and haunt us.
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I didn’t like the move either, but we have to remember that this year was supposed to be a rebuilding year at best. If we kept Sage, we would have had to cut Bethel-Thompson and that guy has some promise.
We made the right move, even if it bit us in the arse.
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I liked the move of getting rid of Sage, but halfway through the season I was thinking perhaps it wasn’t so smart.
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I didn’t agree with the move to dump Sage at the time, but it speaks volumes that no other NFL team picked him up.
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If yards counted for points, then you would have a solid argument there.
But yards are not the only indicator of a QB’s performance. Notice how Adrian Peterson didn’t even break a hundred yards? The opposition completely sold out on stopping Peterson and let Webb do what he wanted and he still could not perform at a solid level.
36% completion percentage, that is all I have to say.
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Actually, considering the situation AD was dealing with, and the fact that he only got the opportunity to carry the ball 22 times instead of the 30+ he has been getting lately, I would say 99 yards is pretty good.
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30+ carries, but he was getting 200 yards during games like that.
He averaged 6 yards per carry throughout the entire season. In this game he averaged 4.5 yards per carry.
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Because the packers contained him and Musgrave had no Plan B. Not surprising since he didnt really even have a Plan A
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Race has nothing to do with it…Webb does not have any value at quarterback. Webb has great athletic skills…..but somehow the Vikings have not been able to figure out how to use him. Ponder has shown improvement this year..interesting to see if they get Ponder some help at wr. They need to trade Harvin.
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I agree about Harvin. It is obvious he was bringing the team morale down. This is evidenced by what happened after he was out.
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Funny nobody mentions a number 1 draft pick vs what was Webb 6th? Thats the real debate. Money and the investment! Teams will obviously remain calm for a lot longer with a high draft pick. Webb has run his course. He should of learned how to catch a ball because he might still have use then. Ponder has 1 season to confirm he has starter qualities and if he doesnt improve, he will be holding a clip board for the next 5-10 yrs. Not a bad gig.
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You have to consider Adrian….he is the reason the Vikings made the playoffs. Ponder is at best an average quarteback. Webb is not a viable backup…they should have kept Rosenfels. If something happens to Adrian the Vikings are a 6-10 team. The Vikings better hope Adrian stays healthy!
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Randall Cobb, James Jones, Jordy Nelson, Greg Jennings and Jermichael Finley. That’s a lot of weapons. A quote from Troy Aikman in todays Startrib: “You couldn’t just plug Aaron Rogers in with any other team and expect him to do the same things he does with the Pack”.
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“When I was playing, I felt that our passing game was only as good as our third receiver,” Aikman said. “Now, I think passing games are only as good as their fourth receiver.
“And what I mean by that is you can do things to take away a No. 1 guy. You can do some things to slow down a Michael Irvin. You can do some things to slow down the [No. 2] guy. But the mismatches really start coming into the middle of the field at that third receiver.”
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I agree mm….Aaron Rogers benefits from a stong wr group. However…the Packers don’t have anything close to Adrian Pederson. Having Adrian really helps Ponder even though he doesn’t catch very many passes. The Vikings had a decent draft last year….they need to continue that again this year. The Packers have had a better batting average in finding solid draft picks. The Packers have done very well with late round picks as well as undrafted players. How many draft picks have the Vikings wasted over the years? Quite a few.
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The Vikings have been getting much better at drafting since Spielman joined the organization. There were some misses, namely because Childress had complete control when he was here, but the last 6 drafts have had some really good late-round selections.
Brian Robison, John Sullivan, Jamarca Sandford, Jasper Brinkley, Everson Griffen, Christian Ballard, Mistral Raymond, Brandon Fusco, Jarius Wright and Blair Walsh are all 4th round or later picks made under Spielman. This makes me optimistic about the future.
The Packers have had amazing stability at the QB position since 1992 which gives them a huge advantage in the draft game. It is much easier to find a solid receiver if you have a stud QB. If we had a franchise QB and the front office we have now, we could be favorites to win the SB in about two years.
I just hope Ponder turns out, or we trade for a legit QB.
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