Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder’s final line from Sunday’s 28-10 loss to the Bears doesn’t look particularly impressive.
It would look a good deal better if the Vikings’ receivers hadn’t dropped six of Ponder’s passes over the course of the afternoon. Jerome Simpson had three of the drops with Jarius Wright, John Carlson and Stephen Burton each adding one to the list. On Monday, coach Leslie Frazier made his displeasure at this turn of events clear.
“The number of dropped passes we had is really unacceptable in our league,” Fraizer said, via Tom Pelissero of 1500ESPN.com. “It’s hard to continue drives when you don’t catch the football. ... I can’t recall us having that many drops in a ballgame at so many different positions. We’re going to go back and look at some things fundamentally we’ll work on this week. But it’s hard to put together some drives when you’re killing yourself with drops.”
Barring a serious turnaround over the next five weeks, Simpson’s signing is going to go down as a major disappointment for the Vikings. They knew they’d have to wait out a three-game suspension at the start of the season, but they’ve also had to deal with his complaints about being deactivated for a game because of a back injury while getting just 12 catches for their troubles.
Getting wide receiver Percy Harvin back from his ankle injury would be a boon for the Minnesota passing game, although it’s debatable how much he’ll help if the rest of the team can’t hold onto the ball.