Josh Freeman Named Starting Quarterback For Giants Game

Moments ago, the Minnesota Vikings announced that Josh Freeman, who has been with the team less than two weeks, has been named the starting quarterback for the Vikings Monday Night game against the winless Giants.

So ends the Matt Cassel era, a 2 game stretch that saw the Vikings go 1-1 on two continents. The Cassel era was preceded in death by the Christian Ponder era. Ponder, the Vikings first round pick out of Florida State in 2011, lasted just 30 starts before the Vikings pulled the plug after an uneven start to the 2013 season.

Freeman becomes the 11th starting quarterback for the Vikings since 2006, a staggering level of uncertainty for the most important position on the field. Freeman hopes to do what Brad Johnson, Tarvaris Jackson, Kelly Holcomb, Brooks Bollinger, Gus Frerotte, Brett Favre, Joe Webb, Donovan McNabb, Ponder, and Cassel couldn't do, and that's to provide long term stability at the quarterback position, a proposition that has been much easier said than done for the Vikings throughout a good portion of franchise history.

Christian Ponder will be the backup to Freeman, but the team has not said whether or not Freeman will be named the starter for the rest of the season. I'd be stunned if he isn't, but with the way this season has gone, heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see Brett Favre come back in for a cameo appearance. It's said in the NFL that if you have two quaterbacks, you have no quarterbacks. If you have three quarterbacks, you have a dumpster fire. At 1-4, the Vikings hope that Freeman can be a fire extinguisher, not gasoline.