Minnesota Vikings: Move to Christian Ponder the Right Move

After the Minnesota Vikings began their season with a 1-5 start and were dismantled by their division rival Chicago Bears on Sunday, Minnesota head coach Leslie Frazier has decided to allow rookie quarterback Christian Ponder to take over the quarterback position.

Coach Frazier let Donovan McNabb know today that he was being bench and informed Ponder he would start on Sunday against the Green Bay Packers.

Before the Vikings acquired McNabb via trade in the preseason, the organization's original plan leaned toward using Ponder as their starter right off the bat.  Those plans changed with McNabb, but now the time has officially come to let the rookie take over.

The Vikings are a team that has been prolonging the rebuilding period for three years now, first signing veteran Brett Favre for two years and then going with Donovan McNabb this year.  Moving on to Ponder will finally get the process in motion.

If Ponder can show promise and manage to get a couple of wins for the Vikings, Minnesota may finally have their guy, but if Ponder fails miserably the team will know to return back to the drawing board.

Assuming that McNabb wasn't going to pull off some spectacular one-year performance for Minnesota, starting Ponder was something what was expected to happen at one point or another.  It was a smart decision by Minnesota to not throw Ponder into the fire right off the bat as a rookie in the first few weeks.

Now that he has had some time to learn, grow, and season with the aid of a veteran, he will be much more prepared.  Not playing in the first six games likely helped Ponder's development more than it could have hurt it.

During his short performance on Sunday, Ponder proved to be pretty mobile while doing a decent job moving the ball around and hitting a number of targets in his only drive against the Bears.

Starting Ponder will give the Vikings some fresh excitement and fire on the field. It also gives the team an opportunity to see where their future lies.  The organization made a good decision with this move.