Minnesota Vikings Sign Josh Freeman: What Does it Mean?

A Year after dominating Minnesota in the Metrodome, Freeman joins the Vikings trying to get his career back on track.

The starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings is a straightforward job.  Hand the ball to Adrian Peterson and be able to beat man coverage when opposing defenses stack the box.

Other than the ole gunslinger himself (Brett Favre) in 2009, no quarterback has consistently beaten defenses through the air. We watched the Donovan McNabb experiment fail horribly and Christian Ponder has shown flashes, but nothing to make the franchise certain of a bright future.

Ponder continues to struggle early this season, and an injury lead him to miss the teams “home” game against Pittsburgh in London. Veteran backup Matt Cassel filled in nicely, easily delivering the best performance of a Vikings quarterback in recent memory. But at this point in his career it is safe to assume Cassel is a career backup. He simply doesn't make all the downfield throws required of a starter in today's game.

Enter Josh Freeman. The former first-round quarterback wore out his welcome in Tampa Bay. His once promising career became a distant memory under the new Buccaneers regime. Rumors about his attitude and work ethic surfaced towards the end of this tenure in Tampa, but that's not surprising. Both parties obviously wanted out of this relationship and the media took every opportunity to paint Freeman as the bad guy. Released by the Buccaneers, pundits labeled him as a career backup. Not so fast.

Josh Freeman is 25-years-old. The young man has all of the arm talent you could ask for from a starting NFL quarterback.  The Buccaneers coaching staff and organization gave up on Freeman, and that hurts a young players confidence. Freeman had his good years and bad, but 80 career touchdown passes compared to 66 interceptions isn't something to “give up” on.

Freeman met with the Vikings organization over the weekend, and both sides obviously felt good about the situation. Frazier has been quiet on the quarterback situation over the past week, but stated that Ponder would start Week 6 against the Panthers if healthy. Cassel is in line to start if Ponder can't go, which is a smart move.

But make no mistake about it; Freeman came to Minnesota to claim the starting job. And that's exactly what the Vikings want. Easing Freeman into the starting role while Ponder and Cassel inevitably play themselves out of it is how I see this one turning out. I expect Freeman grabs the reigns to the starting job by Week 8, which happens to be a Sunday night matchup against division-rival Green Bay in the Metrodome.

Even if it doesn't happen quickly, Freeman will eventually be the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. He wouldn't have signed with the team if he and the organization didn't believe that would be the case. At his best, Freeman is a 20-plus-touchdown passer with the ability to push the ball down the field. At his worst, Freeman is still a better pure-passer than Ponder or Cassel.

Bottom line; the Vikings were most likely going to bail on the Ponder experiment at seasons end. He seems like a good kid, but hasn't done enough to reassure Rick Spielman and the organization that he is capable of being the franchise quarterback. And in a division with Jay Cutler, Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers, that's what you need.

Freeman provides the team with a strong-armed quarterback who still has plenty of upside. If what I believe to be true is in fact truth, than this is a low-risk acquisition. Either Freeman doesn't work out and the Vikings attempt to solve their quarterback puzzle through the draft next year, or Freeman resurrects his career and the Vikings get their quarterback of the future.

To quote Billy Beane; “A team is paying you $3.5 million to play against them. That's what they think of you as a ball-player.” Obviously that was in reference to baseball, but should still serve as fuel to motivate any athlete.

However this pans out, I'm excited for the ride. It sure is hard not to be romantic about sports.