Did Tom Brady reveal Vikings’ Week 4 starter?

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, friend and former teammate of Vikings quarterback Matt Cassel, may have accidentally broke some inside news.

According to Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com, Brady was talking about his former backup quarterbacks, Cassel and current Browns quarterback Brian Hoyer, in general when he said the following:

“I’m friends with both those guys,” Brady said. “Matt Cassel, who may be starting this weekend. Brian, I text back and forth.”

It was discovered Wednesday that Vikings starter Christian Ponder has injured ribs from  last week’s loss and was limited in practice. Cassel got more repetitions in practice while Ponder rested.

“If I can’t fulfill my duties, then Matt’s going to step in and play,” Ponder said, via Tom Pelissero of USA Today.

Head coach Leslie Frazier wouldn’t comment much on the subject, via Kevin Patra of NFL.com:

“We want to see how Christian does today,” Frazier said. The coach said he hasn’t necessarily started game-planning for backup Matt Cassel, but wouldn’t really have to alter the game plan if Cassel is the starter.

Meanwhile, Cassel says Ponder looked just fine.

“He looked like Christian,” Cassel said. “He looked great, and he was throwing the ball fine.”

Yeah.

There is some fishy business here. Remember last year’s Wild Card game? Ponder’s injury was revealed early in the week leading up to the game, but the team was coy about the injury and was vague leading up to the game. The team had both comments of optimism and vagueness on different occasions in their comments to the press. They did not reveal that Ponder would not play until minutes before the game. But looking back, there was no way he was going to play in that game, based on the severity of the bruise on his throwing arm.

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