The Minnesota Vikings are starting a rookie at quarterback in Christian Ponder. Sometimes, rookie quarterbacks make throws that they shouldn't. That was clearly the case early in the second quarter at Ford Field against the Detroit Lions.
On a second down play, Ponder dropped back to pass and once again found a wide open Alphonso Smith. As we intimated earlier on this afternoon, Smith still plays for the Lions and not the Vikings, so that's a bad thing. Smith went untouched into the end zone for a 30-yard return, and the Lions had pushed their lead back to three touchdowns at 28-7.
It has been a rough afternoon for all three phases of the Vikings' team thus far. The sad part? We're only two and a half minutes into the third quarter. A long afternoon has the potential to get even longer for fans of the purple and gold.
As it stands now, we have 12:33 left in the first half of play, and the Minnesota Vikings trail the Detroit Lions by a score of 28-7, with 21 of Detroit's points coming directly off of Minnesota turnovers.