The Vikings have an extra day of preparation before they face the Giants next Monday night and that might give them enough time to get Josh Freeman ready to take over as the team’s starting quarterback.
Matt Cassel had a rough time of it in Sunday’s 35-10 loss to the Panthers, throwing a pair of interceptions and struggling to move the team all day until a garbage time touchdown drive made his final numbers a bit more respectable. Coach Leslie Frazier said after the game that Cassel “has to play better,” but said he would have to evaluate things before making a call on the Week Seven starter. Part of that evaluation will include a determination of Freeman’s readiness.
“I’m not sure,” Frazier said, via Mark Craig of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “We’ll take a look when we get with him this week and see where he is. We’ve done some things with him in this first week. We’ll see.”
Whatever Frazier decides regarding Freeman’s readiness, it seems quite unlikely that his evaluation will lead to Christian Ponder’s return to the starting lineup. The Vikings never went to Ponder on Sunday even as the game got out of hand, which suggests that the “bright future” the Vikings have talked about Ponder having is one they’d be happy to see play out somewhere else.
