UPDATE: Teddy Bridgewater won’t play, according to Ian Rapaport
And a separate report from Mike Garafolo:
Original story below:
The Minnesota Vikings have announced that quarterback Chandler Harnish has been signed to the 53-man roster from the practice squad and they have waived wide receiver Rodney Smith. This very likely means that Christian Ponder will start for the Vikings tonight against the Green Bay Packers while Teddy Bridgewater is inactive.
Two things of note: McLeod Bethel-Thompson was the other quarterback on the practice squad and had been in the Norv Turner system for that much longer. Regardless, neither Bethel-Thompson nor Chandler Harnish spent an entire season with a Coryell system. Bethel-Thompson has been with Erhardt-Perkins systems and a West Coast system in San Francisco under Greg Roman. Harnish has been in Pep Hamilton’s West Coast Offense. There’s a good argument that neither of them are truly familiar with the terminology—Harnish was in a spread system in college, as was Bethel-Thompson (though opposite kinds of spread offenses).
The second thing that is worth noting is that receiver Charles Johnson stuck on the roster more than Rodney Smith, a preseason favorite. He will likely sign to the practice squad after the game, then be promoted to the roster after Sunday while Harnish finds himself on the practice squad.
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I am surprised they did not activate MBT also so as to have 3 QBs tonight.
Suck
What, you don't have full confidence in QB Marqueis Gray?
MBT hasn't picked up the offence. I heard he is really struggling to learn it.
if nothing else, it'll be interesting to see the difference in ponder under norv
but damn, i wanted to see TB win this game. at least it looks like we finally have our franchise QB
I switched work schedule to see Teddy. This sucks. I could have been working instead.
Bummer, our chances to win just dropped...by about 20-25%.
Teddy isn't even active,which is really puzzling.If Ponder gets hurt we're really screwed(predictable understatement!).We will still win, but now I'm a little worried.C'MON DEFENSE!!
Teddy is out.