Christian Ponder's Fantasy Scouting Report Following Teddy Bridgewater's Injury

The quarterback carousel for the Minnesota Vikings continues to spin, taking fantasy owners along for the wild ride.

Rookie Teddy Bridgewater gave owners a very viable option for three quarters and change against the Atlanta Falcons in what was his first NFL start before leaving the game with an injury, as noted by Vikings PR:

For now, it sounds as if Bridgewater plans on being in the lineup despite a short turnaround, as captured by NFL Network's Ian Rapoport:

Beforehand, Bridgewater was a top-10 scorer with 20 points on a 19-of-30 effort for 317 yards against an Atlanta defense that entered the contest surrendering the eighth-fewest points to quarterbacks on the season despite encounters with New Orleans and Cincinnati.    

Now things turn to Christian Ponder, the third option with Matt Cassel on injured reserve.

The team thought enough of Ponder to keep him on board in an era where many teams do not stick with three quarterbacks, so now the Florida State product gets a chance to prove his worth.

For owners, Ponder is worth a speculative add in the deepest of leagues. The offense does not change too much with him under center in place of the rookie—the team ran it 44 times Sunday in comparison to 30 passing attempts and did quite well with 241 yards on a 5.5-yards-per-carry average.

Do not expect that formula to change much, as one can glean from the team's upcoming schedule before the Week 10 bye, complemented with how the opponents perform on average against quarterbacks so far:

Week	Opponnent	Points Surrendered to QBs Average
5	at Green Bay	12.3 (7)
6	vs. Detroit	11.3 (5)
7	at Buffalo	15.7 (19)
8	at Tampa Bay	16.7 (21)
9	vs. Washington	16.3 (20)

Those last three matchups seem sound, but they come on the road and we are talking about a quarterback who has never been relevant from a fantasy standpoint. Even when Ponder was completing a career-high 63.6 percent of his passes last season over the course of nine games, he threw seven touchdowns to nine interceptions.

On the off chance offensive coordinator Norv Tuner breathes new life into Ponder's career while leaning on weapons such as Cordarrelle Patterson and Greg Jennings, not to mention a stable of backs, there is value here is the deepest of leagues.

But Ponder is very much a volatile commodity whose value is tied to the health of Bridgewater. Most leagues should have better values on the open market, especially if the rookie was a free agent to begin with.

All scoring info courtesy of ESPN standard leagues, as is points-against info. Statistics courtesy of ESPN.