GREEN BAY, Wis. — As badly as Vikings coach Leslie Frazier wanted to start Christian Ponder at quarterback last night, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Minnesota’s playoff fate was pretty much sealed as soon as Frazier decided in pregame warmups that Ponder — who had thrown every pass for the Vikings in the regular season — would be unable to start against the Packers because of severe bruising and swelling in his throwing elbow.
Forced to go with an ice-cold Joe Webb instead, the Vikings predictably ended up being little more than a speed bump to their NFC North rivals as the Packers rolled into the divisional round with a 24-10 wild-card win at Lambeau Field.
“It just wouldn’t have been smart to risk it,” Frazier said afterward about making Ponder an extremely late and surprising scratch. “It just wasn’t the right thing to do.”
The Vikings never tried to hide Ponder’s ailing elbow, putting him on the injury report all three days this week and officially listing him questionable on Friday.
Even so, it was a shock when Ponder ended up inactive and in street clothes after attempting a handful of short throws on the field during early warmups. But anyone who though the Minnesota starter was soft didn’t see the massive bruise on Ponder’s elbow afterward that barely allowed him to put his dress shirt on.
“The lobs I was making in pregame was the hardest I could throw the ball,” Ponder said.
Both Ponder and Frazier said it wasn’t a matter of withstanding pain as it was being structurally unable to throw more than 10 yards.
“He didn’t have full range,” Frazier said. “It would have made it very difficult to really run our offense.”
Ponder’s poor health put the Vikings’ hopes in the hands of Webb, who had led them to a victory over the Eagles two years ago but spent all of 2012 on the bench. He was awful in an emergency role last night, completing just 11 of his 30 passes for 180 yards, a garbage-time touchdown and an interception.
“I hadn’t seen the field since August, but that’s no excuse,” Webb said.
And the Vikings had no chance as a result.