Christian Ponder would love nothing more than to take Donovan McNabb's starting job one day, but right now the rookie is happy to be learning from the veteran.

Ponder said the two quarterbacks discuss reads all the time, watch film together and that McNabb isn't afraid to say something when he sees his younger teammate make a mistake.

"No, I don’t think I’m surprised," he's helping, Ponder said. "I think I’m definitely appreciative of it. He’s been great for me. Without even having to ask him he’s been right there helping me out. I think the chemistry with everybody, between Donovan and Joe [Webb] and Rhett [Bomar] has been great. Everyone else is helping each other out."

Ponder said entering training camp that even though McNabb had been told he was the starter, that he wanted the opportunity to compete.

"I don’t know," Ponder said when asked if he felt he was pushing McNabb for the job. "I think right now I’m getting better. And the good thing is I’m learning from him, which is big for me. There’s still that competitive side to it. I’m still trying to push myself. He’s pretty dang good."

Ponder will follow McNabb on Saturday at Seattle, meaning that he likely will take part of the second quarter and be in the game into the second half. Ponder expects that the volume of plays he will work with Saturday will be much like last week in Tennessee when the Vikings went with a limited menu.

"We have a little more, but it’s not a whole lot," Ponder said. "He’s still keeping it pretty simple. We’re just trying to work on our game. We haven’t even really game-planned [for] Seattle. I don’t think we’re going to start game-planning until next week. So we’ll keep it pretty simple and just play."