Christian Ponder: Why It's Time for Minnesota Vikings to Play Rookie QB

Even if the Vikings pull out a win against the Arizona Cardinals, the Christian Ponder era needs to start. 

Lezlie Frasier needs to understand where he team is headed. At the beginning of the season, it made perfect sense to play McNabb—although the Vikings may not be the strongest team, they still had enough talent around McNabb to at least be competitive this season and surprise a lot of people. However, it is now clear that playoff hopes are not realistic, and playing McNabb is just delaying the inevitable. 

Playing Ponder will certainly give the team more uncertainty from week to week and the veterans may not love the idea of playing out the rest of their careers with a young quarterback. But by starting Ponder, Minnesota will provide a solid foundation for the young quarterback to develop.

Obviously, they have a terrific running back in Adrian Peterson, as well as some outside weapons in Percy Harvin and Visanthe Shiancoe. When healthy, they have a veteran defense that is going to keep them in games. The offensive line may not be very good, but other than that, this is an ideal situation for a young quarterback. 

This is all assuming that Ponder is a lesser quarterback than McNabb; it is very possible that Ponder is the better player, but McNabb is easier to trust. Playing Ponder may actually improve the Vikings chances of going somewhere this season. 

In addition, the more experience Ponder gets under his belt, the better the Vikings odds are going into next season. If Ponder proves to be an effective player, and if they can fill a few holes on the offensive line and secondary, the Vikings could be back in contention faster than most will expect.