Ponder With Two of the Worst INTs in NFL This Season?

Christian Ponder has been nothing short of an enigma this season. He is 26th in the NFL in passing yards behind the likes of Ryan Tannehill, Mark Sanchez, and yes, even Brandon Weeden. He has thrown 12 interceptions, a fairly high number for someone who constantly can freeze linebackers on play action due to the dominance of Adrian Peterson. However, he has less interceptions than Matt Ryan, Eli Manning, and yes, Drew Brees. His completion percentage is a respectable 13th in the NFL, but this is mainly due to his inability to make accurate reads and habit of throwing check downs after his first and second options are covered. He has been a frustration and a worry for many fans throughout Minnesota, but it looks like he is finally getting national attention for some of his struggles.

Grantland’s in-house football expert Bill Barnwell recently wrote a piece on the Five Worst Passes of the 2012 NFL Season. Coming in at number two was our very own Christian Ponder. Here’s what Barnwell had to say about an INT Ponder threw in Week 6 against the Redskins. (Note: This article ran prior to the Vikings last three games.)

2. Christian Ponder vs. the Washington Redskins, Week 6

Just for fun, here’s a table with Christian Ponder’s performance this season, split into two groups: one before this play began, and one after he took the snap.

Now, I don’t know that this pass drove Ponder into a downward spiral. I like to think that it was just a blip in a slump that will be corrected over the second half, if just out of benevolence for a young quarterback.

But then you watch this pass, and … man, oh man, is it grotesque. Ponder rightly decides to check down on a third-and-long where nobody’s open downfield, but he overthrows his receiver — standing at the line of scrimmage — by a full eight yards. He overthrows the receiver so badly that Madieu Williams, playing a zone coverage so far away that he’s not even accounting for the checkdown, is able to fall down as he catches the pick, roll around on the ground, get up, and then run nearly sideline-to-sideline with the interception return without being touched before he gets inside the 5-yard line.

You know how an announcer fawns over a quarterback’s touch when he winds up and throws some craftily soft pass ahead of a receiver? In a fair, just world, the announcers would have chided Ponder for whatever bad touch he had on that throw and encouraged him to just one-hop a pass thrown as hard as humanly possible to his checkdown next time he had the chance.

Yikes! Those are not kind words for our field general. Well, it looks like Ponder’s INT at the end of the first half last week made Barnwell just as upset. In today’s recap of Week 14, Barnwell had this to say about Ponder’s short-armed INT that was intended for a wide open Jarius Wright and fell into the hands of Major Wright.

Ponder already has one pass attempt this year that made its way onto my list of the five worst passes of the NFL season when I compiled it a couple weeks ago. On Sunday, he tried to earn a second spot there. This attempted bomb to an open Jarius Wright was truly dreadful. Ponder doesn’t step into the throw, which means it’s all arm on the pass, and he just doesn’t have the arm to do that. The result is a pass underthrown so badly that both Bears safeties are able to recover, converge on the football, and fight for the interception. The pass is five yards short of Wright, and if you consider that Ponder probably meant to hit his receiver in stride, it’s a good 15 yards short of where it’s supposed to be.

The concern for Ponder’s ability to be a permanent QB solution for years to come is growing in Minnesota. It seems like the whispers are growing nationally too. For better or worse, though, we need to rely Ponder if we’re going to have any shot at the playoffs this year.