{"id":11313,"date":"2011-09-25T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2011-09-25T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=11313"},"modified":"2014-05-09T14:55:22","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T19:55:22","slug":"jim-souhan-makes-a-subtle-case-for-starting-christian-ponder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/09\/25\/jim-souhan-makes-a-subtle-case-for-starting-christian-ponder\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Souhan makes a subtle case for starting Christian Ponder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"At least, that’s the way most Minnesota fans are going to read this little history lesson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

For those considering the Vikings a playoff contender, this week represents a severe test of Frazier’s abilities. For those with a more realistic view of this team, these losses could have been predicted. Even coaching legends lose early in their tenures.<\/p>\n

Bill Belichick went 6-10 his first year, didn’t post a winning record until his fourth season, and didn’t win a Super Bowl title until his seventh, and then only after Tom Brady replaced injured Drew Bledsoe.<\/p>\n

Tom Landry went 0-11-1 his first season and didn’t post a winning record until his seventh season. Chuck Noll went 1-13 his first season and didn’t post a winning record until his fourth season. Bill Walsh went 2-14 his first season, Jimmy Johnson 1-15.<\/p>\n

Vikings history, too, suggests that becoming a head coach requires a learning curve. Norm Van Brocklin went 3-11 his first year. Bud Grant was 3-8-3. Les Steckel went 3-13, then Grant returned to go 7-9.<\/p>\n

Mike Tice lost his first five games; Brad Childress went 6-10 his first season. Only Jerry Burns and Denny Green made immediate inroads. Burns went 9-7 in 1986 and didn’t suffer a losing record until 1990. Green assembled one of the best coaching staffs in recent NFL history — including Monte Kiffin, Tom Moore, Willie Shaw, Tyrone Willingham, John Michels, John Teerlinck and Tony Dungy — and went 11-5 after replacing Burns.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

All those NFL coaching legends have two things in common: They lost early, and they looked much smarter after a young, future Hall of Famer started taking snaps.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least, that’s the way most Minnesota fans are going to read this little history lesson: For those considering the Vikings a playoff contender, this week represents a severe test of Frazier’s abilities. For those with a more realistic view of this team, these losses could have been predicted. Even coaching legends lose early in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[717,638,126,179],"class_list":["post-11313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-christianponder","tag-lesliefrazier","tag-minnesotavikings","tag-nfl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-2Wt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25634,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11313\/revisions\/25634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}