Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer gives a hug to a former Viking, Denver Broncos quarterback Teddy Bridgewater (5), during a joint NFL football practice Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021, in Eagan, Minn. (Anthony Souffle/Star Tribune via AP)
First, it was the New York Jets.
Teddy Bridgewater departed the Minnesota Vikings after the 2017 season ended, kickstarting a new life-after-Vikings career. This was at a point when folks didn’t know if Bridgewater could play at a professional level again.
The Jets gave him a shot – sort of. Bridgewater signed as a free agent in New York with a forecast to compete for QB1. About a month later, the Jets chose Sam Darnold from the 2018 NFL Draft to lead operations at quarterback, canceling the need for Bridgewater’s services.
On to the New Orleans Saints he went. Bridgewater experienced very little action in the 2018 season as Drew Brees was in charge. This was the season that referees “screwed” the Saints versus the Rams. All the while with Bridgewater as QB2, he was considered one of the best backup quarterback options leaguewide. He’d be put to work in 2019, and the capable backup label rang true. Bridgewater guided the Saints in 2019 – the same season that the Vikings shocked New Orleans in the playoffs for a second time – to a spotless 5-0 record.
The pro-Teddy horn sounded once again. Suddenly, he was perceived as a mid-tier starter, creating a free agent market for the Louisville alumnus during the 2020 offseason. And the Carolina Panthers scooped him up.
With the Panthers, Bridgewater was merely average, tallying 15 touchdown passes to 11 interceptions – a cringeworthy statline for a good quarterback in the modern NFL.
To date, Bridgewater has never thrown more than 15 touchdowns in a single season.
Carolina finished 4-12 with Bridgewater at the helm and decided to punctuate its Teddy Experiment. Ironically, Bridgewater lost his job to Sam Darnold – again. The Panthers traded for the ex-Jets quarterback this offseason, casting Bridgewater off to the free-agent wire.
A Vikings connection saved the day for Bridgewater’s downward trending career. His 2020 campaign was underwhelming, but new Denver Broncos general manager George Paton didn’t care. Paton arrived Denver from the Vikings front office, guaranteeing his ties to Bridgewater were strong. The acquisition of Bridgewater roped the now-journeyman into a competition this summer with the incumbent Drew Lock for Denver’s QB1.
On Wednesday, Bridgewater – not the upstart Lock – won the battle.
What started as a budding fairy tale for Bridgewater’s Vikings to win the NFC North in 2015 has evolved to Bridgewater finding starting gigs despite a heinous injury five years ago. He’s a survivor.
None of his arm strength virtuoso or sheer passing numbers blow general managers or coaches out of the water. Bridgewater is pretty much the same dude wherever he goes – a man that moves the sticks, limits turnovers, and makes clutch throws. He is not a climb-on-his-back quarterback like Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson – but he also isn’t Christian Ponder. Bridgwater lives in the middle, generating clutch performances to keep head coaches coming back for more. Here’s an example with a stat that dates back to 2000:
Bridgewater was an underdog to steal the QB1 assignment from Drew Lock. Most football heads assumed Denver wanted to get one final trial from Lock to “see what they had” for his long-term sustainability.
Nope. Bridgewater struck again, convincing two organizations in two years that he has the physical gifts and mental fortitude to be a QB1.
Now, he just has to go out to Denver and throw more than 15 touchdowns.
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TB will throw for more than 15 touchdowns if he starts at least 10 games and the coach makes it through the season.
The Panthers were a team just embarked on a rebuild last year. They lost their best defensive player to retirement (and promptly spent their entire draft on the D), and their best offensive player to an injury that limited him to three appearances during the season. Bridgewater ended up playing with a mediocre offensive line (Again!), a terrible tight end group, a poor running game, and a very good wide receiver corps. He helped his top three receivers put up career best numbers in yards (all three), receptions and catch rate (two out of three) or yards per catch (one), and helped two of them get new contracts this off-season averaging $11.5 to almost $15 million a year. He put up his own career numbers in attempts, completions, completion % and yards per attempt.
Where Bridgewater failed last year was first in TD production. He showed in 2019 that he could be prolific with TD's, so one has to wonder if play-calling (I'm not the first to mention this possibility) or talent around him (OL, TE, RB) combined with his own famously conservative quarterbacking style to limit his TD's.
But what was especially unusual for Teddy was his failure in potential game-winning and 4th quarter comeback scenarios, previously considered a strength of his. The number I have seen is that the Panthers failed to convert all seven of such possible scenarios last season, including two where their placekicker missed a couple of long field goals. For a supposedly clutch QB to fail in clutch moments for a whole season, this seemed to really hurt Bridgewater's "brand," and kill him with the Panthers' fans, coaches and seemingly very involved owner.
But I would counter that if clutch play has been a strength of Bridgewater's in the past, why can't it be one in the future, especially with a better team around him? And the Broncos have supposedly put together a Super Bowl-ready roster that only needs the quarterback play to get them there. I'm a bit surprised that Bridgewater has been named the Broncos starter, and I wish him well. I've never been an especially passionate fan of his, but I can't think of a better Vikings storyline than Kirk Cousins and the Vikings meeting Teddy Bridgewater and the Broncos in the Super Bowl next February, preferably after the Vikings first put away Taylor Heinicke and the Washington Football Team in the playoffs.