What If...

It's always a foolish endeavor to look back at a draft and wonder (Ponder) what if your team had done something else with one of their picks. You don't get a draft do over so there's really no point in thinking about it. With the Minnesota Vikings stumbling through a 2-8 season I can't help but do something foolish.

It's still a little early but it looks like the Vikings 2012 NFL Draft was very solid. Maybe even great. Matt Kalil and Blair Walsh have already made a Pro Bowl. Safety Harrison Smith is on his way there and maybe much more. Receiver Jarius Wright and tight end Rhett Ellison have made key contributions. The Vikings selected Central Florida corner Josh Robinson with the third pick of the third round. Nine picks later the Seattle Seahawks selected a little quarterback from Wisconsin, Russell Wilson. Many teams foolishly pushed Wilson aside because he's smaller than your average quarterback. Anybody that watched him play at Wisconsin, and North Carolina St. before that, should have known that the kid could play some football. His skills were obvious. Even better, he never stops working at getting better. Film room work. Field work. Repetition. He's always working. Whatever "it" is. Russell Wilson has "it." The Vikings needed a corner. They also drafted Christian Ponder in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft. It didn't really make a lot of sense then to take another quarterback fairly high only a year later. It makes some sense now. It makes a lot more sense after watching Wilson do what he does so well against the Vikings last Sunday. Ponder has had struggles while Wilson is fast becoming one of the best quarterbacks in the league. It's so easy to creep back to that 2012 NFL Draft and look at this little change of the Vikings third round. Not only would it put Wilson on the Vikings it would keep Wilson away from the Seahawks.

There's always a rush for a quarterback to develop. During the Vikings-Seahawks game, the announcer mentioned that Mike Holmgren said that a quarterback shows whether he has the goods or not between games #32 and 40. If the quarterback starts right away, Holmgren's window begins with the third season. This is Christian Ponder's third season. Sunday was his 33rd start. He's just entered this window to show that he gets the NFL. He's had some nice moments. He was terrific last week against the Washington Redskins. He actually played pretty well in the first half Sunday against an excellent Seahawks defense. Then came a meltdown in the fourth quarter. Ponder's problems seem to come from moments of mind-numbing mistakes. All quarterbacks make throws that they desperately want back. Simply bad throws. Ponder seems to have these moments more often than the top quarterbacks in the league. I don't know if he starts to press after he's made a stupid mistake but he seems to have a tendency to do it again. It's these repeat mistakes that's going to find him as a career backup or out of the league entirely. So, Christian Ponder remains a quarterback that has real nice potential that may develop. Over in Seattle, Russell Wilson is well on his way to becoming elite. He may already be there. It's too easy to look back to 2012 and wonder, what if...