The Joe Webb Experiment Did Not Work: Vikings-Packers, In Two GIFs

Green Bay 24, Minnesota 10: You know how the most important part of the Hippocratic Oath is primum non nocere, or "do no harm"? Probably you do, because they kept showing that promo for that show about the schizophrenic doctor called Do No Harm? Joe Webb subbed in for an injured Christian Ponder tonight and instead of being the just barely competent game manager Ponder had been all year, Webb did a lot of harm. He overthrew receivers. He underthrew recievers. He threw an interception to Sam Shields. He kept throwing the ball in the air every time he saw pressure. Like, straight up in the air, the way you see above. It's a small miracle he wasn't picked off more than once. Before a couple consecutive completions when the game was fairly well out of hand, Webb was 7/25 with a 22.9 QB rating—if it weren't for the final four minutes (final line: 11/30, 180 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) he'd have had a historically awful game. He did much harm. This was roughly a middle-of-the-road result result when Webb dropped back to pass tonight:

Which is a bit of a shame, because it means less Adrian Peterson. If you've read the hosannahs we've written for Peterson—here's one, and he comes up quite a bit here—you know we're fans, and if you like football, you probably are too. He had a remarkable season, topped off by 99 yards in a game that saw the Vikings throwing from behind for much of the second half. It's OK though. Peterson's proven he's able to come back from disappointments—he wasn't even at full strength for most of his near record-setting season—and he's already thinking about next year. Vikings go home, while the Packers head to San Francisco.