I know it’s still very much the off-season, but I thought this analysis of last season’s week 6 game between the Vikings and the Chicago Bears was very interesting. It starts off with the end of the Donovan McNabb experiment:
We all suspected that McNabb was done after he flatlined in Washington with the Redskins, but how little he had left in the tank was, frankly, shocking. By this time it was like watching an extraordinarily slow train wreck.
In the first five games, he averaged 169 yards a game. In his first game he threw for 39 yards. I actually had to go back and double check the stats on that game to make sure I had that right.
[. . .]
Even early on, McNabb was inconsistent and off. The Bears came in with absolutely zero respect for him, choosing instead to focus on shutting down Adrian Peterson.
The Bears’ Defense stacks the line vs an obvious run, with one safety deep just in case (footage courtesy NBC)
You can see in the attached screen caps that safety Major Wright isn’t even pretending to back into coverage — very clearly he’s coming for Peterson.
Eventually, after three quarters of futility, McNabb is pulled from the game and rookie Christian Ponder is sent in to replace him:
So you’re a rookie, being thrown into the fire against one of the better defenses in the league (and playing like it for once) with minimal snaps because you were a backup.
Christian Ponder, welcome to the NFL.
In one quarter, Ponder amassed more than half the yards McNabb threw for in three.
[. . .]
This allowed Ponder to do one thing McNabb was definitely not capable of anymore — scramble. Ponder broke off several good runs, one a bootleg and one a collapsed pocket.
Then he started completing passes and the defense started backing off the run and stacking the line. They fell into more of a basic base set, dropping players into coverage and rushing four or five guys most of the time.
Unlike McNabb, Ponder was able to find some open seams and complete some passes.
While people hack on Ponder for some of his accuracy issues, he actually did a fair job on short notice, of getting the ball where it needed to be for his receivers.
While it’s become cliché, the Vikings are tied to Ponder’s development for the 2012 season and beyond. Now that they’ve drafted Matt Kalil as their left tackle for the next ten years, and restaffed the receiving corps, they have to hope that Ponder will continue to improve from the brief flashes he was able to show in the catastrophe that was the Vikings’ 2011 season.
