First, Adrian Peterson suffered a really bad ACL injury, and perhaps more damage, and it looks like he’ll be out for at least six months. That means Toby Gerhart needs to finally live up to his potential, not only next week but possibly for the early part of next season.

Second, QB Christian Ponder was knocked out of the game one play later, replaced by Joe Webb, who led Minnesota to a come from behind victory. Credit the Vikings’ secondary for finally showing some signs of life, I guess.

The third reason the win is bad news is that it takes the Vikings completely out of contention for the top pick in the NFL Draft, which they might have had a chance at if Indianapolis were to win next week. Now it’s out of the question.

And if the Vikes win next week, they might not even end up with the second pick, which they need if they intend to use the pick themselves, to restock top-flight talent on their offensive line. If they intend to trade their pick for multiple picks, it would be even better if they had the second overall pick than if they slip down a bit; the lower the pick, the less value it has in a trade.

At worst, the Vikings will pick sixth overall in April.

Christian Ponder started, made the Packers sweat despite falling short of a win, and somehow managed not to get charged with a felony, or released. Such was not the case for some of his teammates.

Cornerback Chris Cook has been charged with felony domestic abuse, and while the details aren’t worth going into, his future with the team is certainly pretty doubtful, at this point.

Already released, as of this week, is WR Bernard Berrian, who certainly had it coming after going 25 games without a touchdown catch. He was four years into a six-year deal and spiraling downward quickly.

Without a proven receiver to replace him, the Vikings hope Ponder can make due with Percy Harvin, Michael Jenkins, Greg Camarillo, Devin Aromashodu and Stephen Burton. Of those, Harvin, Jenkins and Burton are the folks in the purple’s three-wide set, but with only Harvin a real threat, you can bet that if the season continues to go dismally for the Vikings, they’ll be hoping Notre Dame’s Saint Paul-native star WR, Michael Floyd, is available when they draft.

He’s projected to go as high as second overall; that’s a position this year’s team has a shot at, as coach Leslie Frazier begins the work of rebuilding the team from the shambles Childress left it in. Rumor is, Brad didn’t even keep the team’s rv insurance up-to-date.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t quite that bad… but he left the team pretty messed up, for sure.

Ponder responded well in a hopeless situation. He completed his first two passes and finished the game completing nine of seventeen passes for 99 yards. Not bad considering it took McNabb three quarters to compile 15 of 19 passes for 138 yards. While Ponder was in the game at a point where the running game had to be abandoned, more or less, it became clear during his time on the field that he’s at least no worse than McNabb while being more sound mechanically, as well as a bit more mobile.

No diamond rings are being given out just yet, but his performance was solid enough that the Vikings are definitely going to be headed for a QB crisis if McNabb comes out as the starter next week.

While Coach Leslie Frazier and the team are not ready to admit the error of their choice just yet, despite a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs last week, that day is on the horizon. But if his poor performance continues, I’d be shocked if the Vikings stick with McNabb all the way up to their Week 9 bye. More likely is that he’s only one or two losses away from Ponder-ing his fate from the bench as the Vikings turn to grooming a Christian conversion.

(Yes, I’m being too cute by half, but I mean the team will be starting Christian Ponder soon.)

It’s too bad for fans who have to watch these games in the meantime. Maybe the Vikings could offer ticket holders some sort of value-added benefit in the meantime, while McNabb, who’s clearly lost it, remains starter. Like, perhaps, some nice Best Buy coupons? That would appeal to the tech-hungry men at the games, at least. And be a nice cross-promotion. Because, heaven knows, watching a winless team deserves some sort of extra compensation.

Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, quarterback Tavaris Jackson, and wide receiver Sidney Rice were all with Minnesota last season, and are keys to Seattle’s offense this season. The three of them could fill out a lot of lingerie plus size outfits, figuratively speaking.

Bevell was Minnesota’s offensive coordinator under dismissed head coach Brad Childress, and he’s now calling the plays on offense for Seattle. T-Jack was a five-year man with the Vikings and had brief spurts as the designated starter, but the team lost faith in him during the Brett Favre years.

The only one of the trio the Vikings probably wish they still had is wide receiver Sidney Rice, who seemed extremely promising until slowed by injury last year. Minnesota tried to get a discount on a contract extension due to that injury, but Seattle quickly outbid all comers.

One can be sure Bevell, T-Jack and Rice would all love to look better than Minnesota tonight, even if T-Jack and Rice only play in the first quarter before being pulled to test second- and third-stringers.

Still, McNabb looked OK for his first series, less so later on, but never generated a score. Probably third-stringer Joe Webb worked with the second team and generated the only drive that created points for the Vikings, a field goal. And then Christian Ponder was allowed into the game late, and looked unimpressive with only third-stringers and probably cuts to work with around him.

This goes to prove that even with McNabb on board, the Vikings offense has a lot of growing to do yet, and even those with Acer laptop computers at their disposal wouldn’t gain much advantage over the average fan in figuring that out, because, well… three points speaks for itself.

Of course, our defense wasn’t bad; they only allowed fourteen points all night. At some point, the offense has to do their part.

Perhaps the idea is to use a sort of reverse osmosis system, where Ponder will learn not only from McNabb’s successes, but his mistakes as well. Or not. It’s hard to tell exactly what the real goal is. Many teams have tossed first-year quarterbacks out into the trenches, realizing the first couple years might be rough, but in the end they’d end up with the next Aaron Rodgers, Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy, Jimmy Clausen or Sam Bradford.

Ponder is one of the brainiest QB’s in the game and the real question is whether McNabb is even interested in training in the guy who will replace him. Brett Favre was far more appropriate for that role, as a guy with retirement seeming far more immediate in his own eyes. I’m not convinced McNabb sees himself that way, yet.

Unfortunately, Favre retired before Minnesota had a chance to draft a decent future starter like Ponder for him to train.

On the defensive line, Minnesota selected defensive tackle/end Christian Ballard in the fourth round and defensive end D’aundre Reed in the seventh round. That should help add depth and shore up a line that could find itself short three starters next season.

For the secondary, they added fifth-round cornerback Brandon Burton and sixth-round defensive back Mistral Raymond.

On the offensive line, they added offensive tackle Demarcus Love and center Brandon Fusco, both in the sixth round. Outside of the elite first-round guys, a lot of big bodies can come in on offensive line and be shaped into impact players over time; the failure rate outside of the first round is about the same in the third as in the seventh.

Finally, the Vikings even added an outside linebacker to their depth chart in sixth-rounder Ross Homan and a new wide receiver Stephen Burton in the seventh round, who looks to be a decent special team player.

By picking up eight players in the final four rounds, the Vikings may not have made big splashes, but smart drafting in these rounds is what can make or break a draft class as a whole. We’ll check out their m-drol reviews in two or three years and see how many of these guys are still on the team.

There’s a method to Frazier’s apparent madness. While Minnesota has three solid tight ends on roster already in Jeff Dugan, Jimmy Kleinsasser and Visanthe Shiancoe, one needs to look at the details to understand why they Vikings found Rudolph intriguing.

Kleinsasser is 34 and has expressed some interest in possibly retiring. Shiancoe and Dugan are both 30, which is getting up in years for tight ends. And all three players are in the final year of their current contracts. Rudolph might seem like a luxury now, but so did Adrian Peterson when the Vikings drafted him a few years ago.

And don’t discount the Peterson factor in selecting Rudolph; the possibility of an offensive set featuring both Rudolph and Shiancoe could really improve the Vikings’ options in goal-line situations when Peterson’s in the backfield. Rudolph was not, after all, drafted for his soccer trophies.

Some folks believe Ponder, who is very intelligent, enters the NFL as the most ready-to-start quarterback taken on Day One of the draft. In fact, rumors around Winter Park is that Coach Frazier is so high on landing Ponder, who he has said repeatedly is a high-character guy, that the Vikings may forgo spending big money on a top-notch veteran QB to provide a bridge for Ponder, such as Donovan McNabb, who’d come rather pricey to the team.

Instead, the Vikings may opt for a low-cost, high experience guy to be a backup plan and insurance policy in case Ponder needs time, gets injured or for some other reason isn’t ready to start Day 1. Probably the best of that crop would be former Tennessee starter Vince Young, who would only be needed for a year or two and could be had at a fraction of the price of McNabb.

While some Vikings fans handled the Ponder pick poorly, MinnesotaSportsScene.com believes Ponder packs the potential to purify the purple of the QB quandry they’ve been in ever since Daunte Culpepper’s career went south.

By that time, another judge will rule on whether to lift the owners’ lockout, imposed for the past 40 days. By then the NFL Draft, scheduled for April 28-30, will have taken place unless players decide to attempt to block it to increase pressure on the owners.

Without a labor pact in place, and a lockout imposed, players might have a chance to contest the legality of the draft. And while it might not be as easy to obtain as an online nursing degree, it’s also not impossible.

The league’s position, currently unchallenged, is that the draft can occur, but contracts cannot be offered, signed or negotiated. I seem to remember the last NFL-Players dispute in the 1980s resulted in the draft being shortened by several rounds, from 12 to seven. Perhaps players haven’t challenged the legality of the draft because the length of the draft isn’t in dispute in the proposed labor agreement being negotiated. Or perhaps it just hasn’t occurred to anyone yet.

Still, one might have a more productive time locating online nursing degree programs than a legal history of NFL labor disputes.

The NFL and NFLPA might be close to a deal, or far apart from one, but so far they are not willing to stop talking and start engaging in nuclear options. The nuclear option for the owners would be to enforce an owner’s lockout – a work stoppage they believe would be a show of power on their part. The nuclear option for the players is to decertify the NFLPA.

Neither option, if things reach that point, would ensure a quick resolution to the current labor dispute. In fact, it could put the entire 2011 season in jeopardy. However, federal district court judge David Doty, (a man both sides should take key man insurance out on, if ever there was a need for it), the go-to man for all NFL labor disputes, ruled against the owners this week, saying the NFL violated its agreement with the NFLPA by getting broadcast networks to agree to TV deals that have them coughing up big money for broadcast rights in 2011, whether the league holds a season or not.

Without that guaranteed payment, owners’ pocketbooks would be hit harder by a work stoppage, even if they’re the ones enforcing it.

The NFL and NFLPA haven’t had a work stoppage in about 25 years. The main reasons for that was the working relationship established by former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and former NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw, who managed to avoid work stoppages by negotiating reasonably with one another.

Now, however, we have men on both sides going through their first labor crisis. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is an unknown quantity, and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith is likewise untested in labor negotiations.

It’s in the best interest of all concerned to resolve the outstanding issues without a work stoppage. The fact that both sides have agreed to keep talking for another week, at least, is a good sign that both Goodell and Smith are reasonable men.