The Minnesota Vikings could look to trade Christian Ponder if they don't pick up his fifth-year option by May 3 and a team like the San Francisco 49ers could look to trade for him after they wanted to get Terrelle Pryor from the Raiders, as the Niners were reportedly interested before his deal from Oakland to the Seattle Seahawks.
Ponder has been mentioned in rumors all offseason and especially since Matt Cassel was signed, as he is expected to be the starter and the Vikings have also been looking at quarterbacks in the draft. According to ESPN.com, even though Rick Spielman doesn't think there are any "Peyton Manning's or Andrew Luck's" in this draft, there is talent later on with names like Aaron Murray, Zach Mettenberger and Derek Carr and the Vikings have been mentioned as possible destinations for those players and that likely means Ponder is done in Minnesota.
Ponder and the Vikings are at an interesting juncture, as he has not played well enough to get that option and the team now has to decide what to do, as exercising that deal will make the contract guaranteed only against injury and they could pull that and then cut him before the 2015 season. The option for that season will be the average of the third through 25th of the top quarterback salaries in the league and that right now is a little over $9 million and that is high, but it's not terrible if the team feels that he deserves to get at least one more shot. The Vikings could use that to their advantage, but this year the draft is after the May 3 deadline, so they have a decision to make.
Ponder has not been great for the Vikings during his three seasons and his best year was in 2012 when he played in 16 games and had 2,935 passing yards and 18 TDs, but he also had 12 picks. His first season was up and down in 11 games and last year he played in nine and went for 1,648 yards with seven TDs and nine picks, but it was Cassel who factored into all five of the victories for the Vikings. Ponder now has the chance to be a backup, but if the Vikings draft a QB he will have competition and after being the number 12 overall pick, he has fallen off.
The Niners have double digit draft picks and that is why a deal could be an option, but they already traded for Blaine Gabbert, so this likely will not go down. Pryor was a different type of QB and since Colin Kaepernick is mobile, that may have been where the interest came from. Pryor was traded to the Seahawks for a seventh round pick and that ends speculation that the Raiders were going to release him. Pryor started 11 games last season and showed some flashes and he also had a franchise record amount of rushing yards and now he will be one of the backups for Russell Wilson.
The Niners and the Vikings have some major decisions to make before the draft and also the 49ers have to think about Kaepernick's sexual assault investigation.
