It was the obvious pick to talk about as nobody saw him getting picked that early, but people rely so much on Mel Kiper, Mcshay and the popular consensus rankings that whenever a guy gets picked before the consensus he's automatically regarded as a reach, and whenever a guy gets picked after the popular rankings he's automatically regarded as value. Not true, what was it like before people went so crazy over the NFL draft and nobody knew what other people knew.
"But they coulda traded down and got him later"
Not always the case. It takes two to tango, you can't always trade down 3 picks, 10 picks, 20 picks and get the value you want, you always risk losing out, or getting so little in value it doesn't matter.
There are always a lot of smoke screens with QB's. Team X loves Brady Quinn, Team Y loves him, blah blah blah and then he falls 25 or so picks. Everybody is playing high stakes poker with QB's. San Diego had the #1 pick in 2001 but they didn't like Mike Vick, they traded down and ended up getting Drew Brees and LT instead... not bad.
So if you are the Vikings and you like Ponder you take him. What if some other team is hiding in the weeds and they like him too? What if Washington or some team trades up to snag him when you think you are in the clear?
So what do they like about Ponder?
He has "it", he has leadership, swagger, whatever you want to call it. It's something most elite players have, he has DRIVE.
He has Brains. He's working on his second masters degree. Leslie Fraser asked him to chart plays and he said he was pointing out EVERYTHING to the point that Fraser said Ponder knew more than even he knew. That's an impressive compliment.
If you are taking over a veteran team of the Vikings you will need a guy with personality "it" like Favre had and you will need a guy with smarts. They like his game and they like him as a personality so they took him. I won't fault them for it. I'd rather have a smart/moxy Christian Ponder than a dumb/athletic Cam Newton.
"But they coulda traded down and got him later"
Not always the case. It takes two to tango, you can't always trade down 3 picks, 10 picks, 20 picks and get the value you want, you always risk losing out, or getting so little in value it doesn't matter.
There are always a lot of smoke screens with QB's. Team X loves Brady Quinn, Team Y loves him, blah blah blah and then he falls 25 or so picks. Everybody is playing high stakes poker with QB's. San Diego had the #1 pick in 2001 but they didn't like Mike Vick, they traded down and ended up getting Drew Brees and LT instead... not bad.
So if you are the Vikings and you like Ponder you take him. What if some other team is hiding in the weeds and they like him too? What if Washington or some team trades up to snag him when you think you are in the clear?
So what do they like about Ponder?
He has "it", he has leadership, swagger, whatever you want to call it. It's something most elite players have, he has DRIVE.
He has Brains. He's working on his second masters degree. Leslie Fraser asked him to chart plays and he said he was pointing out EVERYTHING to the point that Fraser said Ponder knew more than even he knew. That's an impressive compliment.
If you are taking over a veteran team of the Vikings you will need a guy with personality "it" like Favre had and you will need a guy with smarts. They like his game and they like him as a personality so they took him. I won't fault them for it. I'd rather have a smart/moxy Christian Ponder than a dumb/athletic Cam Newton.
