Vikings' Play-By-Play Man Sandbagging Webb?

First it was the stadium drive, now, it appears, it is an effort to recreate history.  If nothing else, Minnesota Vikings' play-by-play man, Paul Allen, is a pitch man.  The question is whether he even knows any more whether he is pitching or reporting.

As the Vikings made their push for a new stadium that would more than double the team's value, Allen was at the fore chiding the "uneducated" for not supporting something clearly so good for them and threatening the imminent move of the Vikings to LA (the city that purportedly has two nearly ready-to-go NFL stadiums and which is poised to pluck a team from among the few that have not recently been gifted glowing new stadiums).

Most saw through Allen's clear self-interested pandering, even if the Vikings still got their gift.  Allen's current position on Vikings' backup quarterback Joe Webb offers much the same subterfuge and yet more evidence of Allen's pitching proclivities.

At several points during training camp reporting this season, Allen has offered the unsolicited wisdom that Webb is essentially the beneficiary of "catching teams by surprise."  In support of this position, Allen points to Chicago's ability to "shut Webb down after seeing game film on him."

Notwithstanding Allen's N of 1 problem, his own example does more to undermine his position than to support it.  Webb entered the Chicago game last year in replacement of the ineffective/injured Christian Ponder.  Ponder left the game having completed four of ten passes for 28 yards and a pick returned for a TD.  Entering the game at the start of the second quarter, Webb finished 17 of 32 for 200 yards with two picks in a 17-13 loss.

If Webb's statistics in the Chicago game suggest that Webb is not an NFL-caliber starting quarterback, as Allen claims, Ponder's statistics more than make the point that Ponder's prospects are even more dire.

An objective assessment of Webb last season is that he did a fairly good job at quarterback, facing the same limitations that his counter-part, Ponder, faced--a limited offensive line and wide-receiving corps and generally superior opposition.

This year, Allen appears intent on creating among the fan base an impression that Ponder is the only true option at quarterback, no matter what struggles Ponder might endure.  That belief would help diminish any fan sentiments that the Vikings should do anything other stick with their 2011 first-round pick, no matter the results.

Allen's position, in addition to being myopic, helps promote an environment antithetical to the competition that exists on strong NFL teams and potentially reinforces team justifications for sticking with a sunken cost, should Ponder not succeed.

At this point in Ponder's career, it is unclear whether he will mature into an NFL starter.  Last year was not impressive.  Allen and the Vikings blame that on Ponder not having a full camp (something that Webb, without Ponder's benefit of the new playbook, also did not have) and having to play behind a wretched offensive line.  This year, there will be no such excuses, however, as Ponder will have a much stronger offensive line, a full camp, and a full season to have digested Bill Musgrave's playbook.

That should suffice for Vikings' fans, as the team continues to come to grips with the reality that, as currently comprised, it is not a playoff team.  Unfortunately, that does not suffice for Allen, who appears to be openly lobbying for Webb's trade, pointing to the arrival of McLeod Bethel-Thompson as "a threat to one of the two backup quarterbacks" and noting Webb's "poor" performance in passing drills (guess who Allen things is most in jeopardy of losing his job) .

If the Vikings hope to crawl out of the hole that they have made for themselves the past two years, they will need to do a better job of assessing personnel.  That begins by being objective, not fanciful.  Disparaging Webb's NFL credentials in an attempt to bolster Ponders serves neither this goal nor Ponder's interest.  If Ponder succeeds this year, he will have the position that Allen and the team so desperately hope he can secure.  If not, however, it would be beyond foolish to have dismissed candidate number two merely to protect candidate number one.


Up Next:  Are Vikings Buyers or Sellers?

Spielman's Two Draft Sides Already Evidencing Themselves for 2012 Draft

Since arriving in Minnesota, current Minnesota Vikings' General Manager Rick Spielman has had two particular knacks in the draft.  One has been the ability to tab the first-round player that everyone agrees will be a successful NFL player, such as Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin, and, from all initial impressions, Matt Kalil.  Spielman also was sagacious enough to trade a first-round draft choice for Jared Allen.

Spielman's other knack, however, has been his much less scintillating performance identifying starting caliber talent beyond the obvious--often trading down (sometimes even up) to take players that, by most accounts, the rest of the league considered far more lightly.  

From 2007 to 2011, the Vikings had 33 selections outside of the first round of the draft.  Of those 33 picks, the Vikings arguably identified NFL talent in 12--Sidney Rice, Brian Robison, Letroy Guion, John Sullivan, Phil Loadholt, Jasper Brinkley, Chris Cook, Toby Gerhart, Everson Griffin, Kyle Rudolph, Christian Ballard, and Brandon Fusco.  Of those twelve, only John Sullivan has yet cemented a starting position in the NFL, however.

In 2012, the Vikings again took the consensus safe pick atop the draft board, selecting USC left offensive tackle Matt Kalil.  Again, Spielman appears to have plucked a proven, long-term starter from a small pool of options.  After Kalil, however, Spielman appears again to have transformed into his later round form, selecting primarily players that fit a Vikings' need, but who also had much to prove--at the college level, let alone in the NFL.

Clearly, there are many unknowns about the Vikings' latter round selections in this year's draft, much as there are for all NFL teams.  If form holds, however, the Vikings will have one bona-fide starter to show for this draft and one or two replacement level players.  That, despite the Vikings' and Spielmans' oft-ballyhooed chorus that the team was poised to make significant personnel strides given its recent caches of draft picks.

Whatever happens with the Vikings' 2012 draft picks, it is already certain that one reach was a reach too far.  Despite knowing of a torn patellar tendon that cost wide-receiver Greg Childs part of his junior season at Arkansas and made him mostly irrelevant in his senior season, Spielman drafted Childs in the fourth-round of this year's draft.  On Saturday, Childs went down with not one but two patellar tendon tears, putting him out for the season and probably ending his NFL career.

Draft-day gambles are part of the game, but gambling in the fourth on a player who likely would have fallen out of the draft is a bigger gamble than most teams take.  Childs was one such gamble that already has failed--and he was the less risky proposition in terms of transforming to NFL talent than, until Saturday's injury, was fellow Arkansas receiver Jerious Wright.

With Childs gone, the Vikings are left with one less option at a position already beyond thin after Percy Harvin.  Despite ongoing recovery from his 2010 injury, Childs was already the number two receiver at left wide-out, behind Jerome Simpson.  With Simpson serving a three-game suspension to start the season, that made Childs the incumbent starter on the left side.  Now, that battle will be between a bunch of players that the Vikings do not consider part of even their short-term plans.

Up Next:  Patching the Hole.