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Have fun Greg.
The Vikings run a three-verticals route concept to beat the blitz, but the coverage drops stymie Ponder, and the blitz to his front side hurries him out of reads. He doesn’t want to throw to Greg Jennings over Scott, even though Jennings is a fairly open read from the slot. Thus, Ponder is closed down, and he has to scramble.
But in a larger sense, I believe this play speaks to the throws Ponder doesn’t believe he can make. Those limitations will probably come home to roost in the regular season, as they did last year. ESPN’s Ron Jaworski ranked Ponder 27th in his 2013 QB Countdown, and gave a pretty accurate picture of where Ponder is now.
But if Ponder can’t take advantage of the opportunities provided to him by general manager Rick Spielman and offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave, he’ll stay in Jaws’ low 20s. The play illustrated above is an example of Musgrave telling Ponder to go for it — to air it out and see what happens under adverse conditions.
As the great offensive coach Sid Gillman told Jaworski when the two men worked together in the 1970s, the preseason is the time to make those tougher throws to see just how things will turn out. The Vikings will face those kinds of situations when the games really count, and they’ll face a lot more of them if it’s clear that Ponder will not take chances on shot plays downfield.
Greg Cosell of NFL Films, who also produces Jaworski’s NFL Matchup show on ESPN, once told me that you must partially judge quarterbacks on the throws they seem to know they can’t make — the plays left on the table. I’m sure the Vikings are doing just that in these kind of situations.
As the great offensive coach Sid Gillman told Jaworski when the two men worked together in the 1970s, the preseason is the time to make those tougher throws to see just how things will turn out. The Vikings will face those kinds of situations when the games really count, and they’ll face a lot more of them if it’s clear that Ponder will not take chances on shot plays downfield.
Greg Cosell of NFL Films, who also produces Jaworski’s NFL Matchup show on ESPN, once told me that you must partially judge quarterbacks on the throws they seem to know they can’t make — the plays left on the table. I’m sure the Vikings are doing just that in these kind of situations.
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