Ponder to start VS. Bears

Our OL has got to be the worst collection of lineman in the league. It wont matter who is starting QB, if our OL doesn’t improve I don’t think there is any QB that will survive a full season behind them

I think everyone knew when Childress first carted that lame horse out that he was supposed to be a quick athletic QB that could move the tape with his feet or arm. Sadly neither proved true.

Webb’s pass to Rudolph for the TD was not a perfect spiral though it was a perfect pass. Webb struggles to get a tight spiral on his touch throws when he’s slowing down his throwing motion. That was evident on the pass to Rudolph and to an extent on the one to Rice in the end zone last season (i.e. the TD pass that was overturned). However, the placement of both balls were excellent. Webb also struggles with placement on balls when he passing while on the run. I think that’ll improve, but it’s a weakness at this point and particularly so because of the comparison to Ponder who throws an excellent ball when on the move.

But now back to the “pocket passer” comparison. Webb throws a good ball, spiral and all, from the pocket on balls that are thrown with a full speed motion. He can hit receivers at the edges of the field and on intermediate and deep routes better than Ponder does. Ponder’s throws tend to be a bit slower and on deeper balls also less accurate by comparison to Webb’s which certainly implies that Webb’s spiral on those sorts of passes is every bit as good if not better than Ponder’s.

In response to your last statement, yes, I have watched Webb’s 31 attempts this season. I’ve watched his 120 attempts over two seasons. And I also have watched Webb in pre-season. I’ve also watched all of Ponder’s attempts as well. That’s what I’ve been watching for purposes of making this comparison between the two.

not to say such an idea wouldn’t work here, but i think that plays a huge factor in its success.

They are having a pretty big impact in a lot of games

…52 conversions if you project Webb’s stats out to match Ponder’s 88 attempts. thank you for the correction, got mixed up crunching all those damn numbers…!!

point to emphasize, they both convert on 3rd down nearly identically, and Ponder has the great sample size to draw from. meaning, if someone is to argue Webb moves the chains on 3rd down, they also must recognize that Ponder does the same, with higher yds/att and TDs to boot.

Noone I’ve read, including my own post, made any comparison about Ponder’s 3rd down conversions to Webb’s. My point is that CONTRARY to what you and some others have said about Webb, he’s not just about moving the ball with his feet which is the point I was addressing from mak’s initial comment. The fact is, as you’ve just pointed out, he’s every bit as clutch with his 3rd down passing as Ponder.

One important difference of course is that this season the offense has been unstoppable when Webb’s been at the helm. In fact, in last week’s game, Webb’s offense moved the ball so well that it didn’t really get into 3rd down situations much at all. First downs came on Gerhart’s 67 yard run, his 14 yard run, Harvin’s 31 yard reverse, Webb’s 36 yard pass to Harvin, Webb’s 23 yard pass to Aromashodu and a later 5 yard run to Gerhart.

off-topic, i should certainly hope Webb wouldn’t have any INTs given he’s only made 31 attempts this season.

You kind of walked into this one, but I think it points to the double standard you have going with respect to Ponder and Webb as passers. In Ponder’s first start, he had 32 passing attempts and 2 INTs, and he was widely congraluated for having had a promising first game. For the entire season, Ponder has 1 INT for every 23 passes.