Vikings’ Christian Ponder thinks he can play through shoulder pain
By Mike Dyce
The Minnesota Vikings are struggling to keep quarterbacks on the field and have started three quarterbacks this season. Christian Ponder led the Vikings to their second win of the season last week, but not without cost. On a play where Ponder was diving forward for the end zone, he dislocated his non-throwing shoulder.
Ponder sat out practice on Wednesday to rest, and was a limited participant on Thursday. Ponder is optimistic he can play this weekend though.
“Honestly it’s a lot better than I expected to be all week,” Ponder said, via Chip Scoggins of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I was a little pessimistic about what was going to happen over the weekend. I was very uncomfortable. I woke up Monday and Tuesday and I kept feeling better and better. Our training staff has done such a great job of getting me to feel better. So I threw it around a lot more than I expected to [Wednesday]. And each day it’s going to keep getting better.”
Ponder will wear a harness to keep it in place, but not extra padding.
“I don’t know how it’s going to feel,” Ponder said. “Obviously, I’m going to get hit at some point. Hopefully not. But we’ll see how it ends up feeling. But I’m sure it will it be a little painful and hopefully the Seahawks don’t have a target on it.”