Ponder will start the rest of the season

 October 19, 2011  Star Tribune

"It's a done deal. And permanent too. That's the hope at Winter Park anyway.
On Wednesday morning, Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier stopped delaying the inevitable and made the official declaration. Rookie Christian Ponder is now the starting quarterback. And barring injury or some other unforeseen circumstance, Ponder will start the team's final 10 games.
The first start comes Sunday versus the undefeated Packers at Mall of America Field.
"This does not mean that I am giving up on the 2011 season or that our coaching staff if giving up on the 2011 season," Frazier said. "The decision was made purely on what will gives us the best chance to win on Sunday. That's why the decision was made. I didn't feel or sense that staying status quo was going to get us a win on Sunday. Based on that, along with some other things that I looked at, I decided this was the direction we needed to go at this point in our season."
Realistically, it's far too late for Ponder to revive a 2011 season that has the Vikings at 1-5 and ahead of only the Rams in the NFC standings. But it's certainly not too early to start getting the 23-year-old some much-needed game experience. And while Frazier insisted repeatedly Wednesday that he promoted Ponder over Donovan McNabb to give the Vikings the best chance at winning Sunday's home game with Green Bay, there's far greater long-term value for the franchise in making the switch now.
"There's no question that the fact that he'll get a chance to start playing in Week 7 of our season, it should help him in the future," Frazier said. "But that was not a part of my thinking."

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Christian Ponder's sports agency: Vikings' rookie QB will start against Packers

October 18  St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Minnesota Vikings first-round draft pick Christian Ponder will start at quarterback against the Green Bay Packers Sunday at the Metrodome, according to his sports agency. Sports Trust Advisors, which represents Ponder, tweeted the news this afternoon: "Congrats to #Vikings client @cponder7 for earning the start for next week's game." Ponder, who was the 12th overall pick in the draft, completed 9 of 17 passes for 99 yards during the fourth quarter of Sunday's 39-10 loss to the Chicago Bears. Ponder takes over for Donovan McNabb, who was 19 of 24 for 177 yards against the Bears. For the season, McNabb is 94 of 156 for 1,026 yards with four touchdowns and two interceptions. Fading fast at"

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Vikings coach Leslie Frazier says he stands by Donovan McNabb as starting quarterback

September 26 - St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Three games into Donovan McNabb's tenure with the Vikings, he remains winless and coach Leslie Frazier is being asked whether he has considered benching the veteran quarterback.
Frazier dismissed a postgame question about McNabb's status as the starter, with first-round pick Christian Ponder waiting on the sidelines, after Minnesota's 26-23 overtime loss to the Detroit Lions, which dropped the Vikings to 0-3 on the season.
"I don't think the quarterback position is our problem right now," Frazier said. "No. We're not thinking about anything at the quarterback position."
McNabb completed a season-high 22 passes and discovered some chemistry with receiver Michael Jenkins, who caught nine balls for 88 yards. He finally connected with tight end Visanthe Shiancoe for an 8-yard touchdown strike to give the Vikings a 20-0 halftime lead.
But McNabb finished with only 211 yards and misfired badly on several attempts - imprecision coming under greater scrutiny."

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Ponder sees more, learns more - 08-22-2011

“The education of Christian Ponder continued Saturday night in Seattle.

Playing with the second-team offense, the rookie quarterback completed six of 12 passes for 63 yards during a stint that began in the second quarter and ended after the third.

"I think so," Ponder said when asked if things went a little more smoothly for him Saturday than in his preseason debut the previous week at Tennessee. "Got a chance to do two-minute stuff and got to [be] put in different situations, which is good. Got in with the twos, and I think they still had their one defense out there. So I thought it was OK. Could have made some more plays but played pretty well."

Ponder actually had better stats against the Titans, completing eight of 13 passes for 84 yards. But in that instance he replaced Joe Webb at quarterback and was with the third team going against a third-team defense.

"I think the biggest thing has been getting used to the speed of the game and on top of that learning this offense and building team chemistry," said Ponder, the 12th pick in the April draft. "I think the biggest adjustment is the windows aren't as open as they were in college, and you have to make the reads a lot faster and get the ball [out] a lot quicker than last year. It's an adjustment, and I'm part of that learning curve right now but it's been fun.””

Star Tribune - August 22