NFL Rumors: Minnesota Vikings will allow Christian Ponder shot at starting role
By Josh Hill
The Minnesota Vikings have been under a ton of scrutiny from fans over the years for failing to realize Christian Ponder isn’t the quarterback of the future. Fans themselves have had a love-hate relationship with Ponder that swings as violently as his consistent does, but things have seemingly reached a boiling point and fans want Ponder out.
New offensive coordinator Norv Turner isn’t so quick to dismiss Ponder and has even stated the he’s going to allow Ponder a chance to win the starting roles in 2014.
Per Sid Hartman from the Star Tribune:
"“The hard thing in this league is you can be playing good and doing a lot of good things and at that position, if you have a negative play or a sack, fumble or interception, a play like that at the wrong time, it takes away all of the good things you’ve done,” Turner said. “I’ve been impressed with Christian and the things he does in terms of his movement. He moves extremely well on the run. He’s made a lot of big plays. The starting point with any quarterback to me is eliminating those [bad] plays. That would be one of our starting points.”"
This isn’t what Vikings fans want to hear, but Turner goes on to say that franchise quarterbacks aren’t franchise quarterbacks until they start winning. Minnesota also has Ponder under contract and will likely draft a quarterback, so it’s not as though Ponder is forcibly the only option, as nothing could be further from the truth.