FanPost

Franchise QB...can we get this right for once?




This is my first post as a member of the Daily Norseman after months of frequent visits. I have been a Viking fan since Dennis Green's first year as head coach in 1992. I was just a 12 year old boy from Baltimore who had just started observing the Sunday afternoon spectacle aka NFL football, that in my younger days I thought was boring. I had no home team to root for at the time and I happen to catch my first Viking game on TV, and who were they playing....the Packers of course! I thought to myself, "Hey I like their colors and they are physical". Where I'm from everyone in the early 90's were 49ers, Cowboys, or Redskin fans so I thought I'd be different and root for this team that no one ever talks about. They were a solid and under the radar team at the time and finished 11-5. I felt so smart for choosing this diamond in the rough team to root for and pledge my allegiance to....a Vikings fan was born!

I've been a true purple fan through it all. The team couldn't win a playoff game until the miracle game at the Meadowlands against Giants in 1997. Of course the 1998 season where I could tell people I've been a fan for years, your just a bandwagoner! The 41-dount against the Giants in the 2000 playoffs. The back to back 6-0 starts in 2003 and 2004 and the subsequent collapses to finish 9-7 and 8-8 respectively. The magical 2009 Vikings led by former rival Brett Favre.

I've been through it...the good, bad, and ugly. I give you all that background to firstly, let you all know I love Viking football, and secondly, validate the observation and the point I am about to make. I have a question for you all. Can you name all of the quarterbacks drafted by the Vikings since 1992? That is 22 years of football and ask yourself "what the hell are we doing"? This is the most important position on the field for success and look how we have invested in it...

1993 Round 7 Pick 192 Gino Torretta- This was a flier pick because he was the Heisman trophy winner. He never played a down in the regular season

1995 Round 4 Pick 111 Chad May- Do I even need to discuss this guy. He never played a down in the NFL as far as I know.

1999 Round 1 Pick 11 Daunte Culpepper- Finally, for a team that constantly regurgitated retread after retread all through out the 1990's, we were going into the next millennium with a franchise type QB to lead us. Even though he flamed out after his awesome 2004, he was a good pick and fit what the offense was at the time.

2006 Round 2 Pick 64 Tavaris Jackson- Ugh. Was he a reach? I never heard of him going into that draft and many had him going 2 or 3 rounds later. I think it was a classic case of Childress trying to be the smartest guy in the room when often he was not. Either way, it didn't work out and it took too long for them to figure it out in my opinion. At his highest aspiration Jackson is Donavan McNabb 2.0 and I never like McNabb much. I could tell Jackson didn't have it after a handful of starts. Anyway, swing and a miss but I think you could have swung at a better prospect.

2007 Round 7 Pick 217 Tyler Thigpen- A flier pick that turned out to have a little upside. I mean he was serviceable to be a 7th rounder. And after selecting Jackson the year before I'm sure they didn't want to crush him mentally with a high pick at QB.

2008 Round 5 Pick 137 John David Booty- Yet another flier in back-to-back years after selecting Jackson (maybe they did realize Jackson sucked). Booty was a product of the USC machine and at his highest aspiration is Brad Johnson 2.0. I recall Jackson being so bad that the fans wanted Booty...and that's exactly what he was "booty".

2011 Round 1 Pick 12 Christian Ponder- So after Jackson's trial run and a couple years of Favre we decided...it is time. Only this was the wrong draft to make that declaration or at least the wrong pick to do so. Ponder was without a doubt your classic reach for need pick. He had no business being the 12th pick in the draft point blank period! Granted, there were no sure fire prospects on the board in my opinion. Nick Fairley had issues off the field and Prince Amukamara was not so talented that we had to have him but nothing about Ponder suggested he should be a high draft pick. I think his biggest attribute was that he was smart and ran a pro style offense. But did he run it well at FSU? He didn't flash in college so why would he be a championship QB in the NFL, and ultimately that should be what you are looking for.

So there you have it. The last 22 years of QB's selected by our Minnesota Vikings. Seven signal callers and only one of them really had any success or was a guy you were happy to have (Culpepper) and only had a five year run. One would think for a franchise that rarely has a young franchise caliber signal caller that we would have selected more than seven. So with this upcoming 2014 draft we must get it right, right? Well maybe not with the 8th pick.

I'm not a fan of Teddy Bridgewater. He rarely challenged downfield and to me is fools gold. He is very slight and is not overly athletic even with his slim frame. I don't like how he interviews either and he just doesn't do it for me. Doesn't seem like an alpha dog to me. Johnny Football is intriguing but he scares me too. I like his fire but too boom or bust for the 8th pick. I won't go on and on about each QB but I would like to see them skip over this QB class at pick 8 and take a Clinton-Dix or Mike Evans. To me, these guys are better prospects at their position relative to this QB class. I actually like Carr and Mettenberger in the 2nd round much more than risking the 8th pick on a Bridgewater, Bortles, or Manziel when there are potentially beasts like Clinton-Dix and Evans sitting there that don't hardly have any downside risk to them coming into the league.

Well, that concludes my first post/comment on DN. I hope I added something that sparked some new perspectives or at least some great comments.

This FanPost was created by a registered user of The Daily Norseman, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the site. However, since this is a community, that view is no less important.