All Things Teddy-Freaking-Bridgewater

NFL Game Pass is free during the Covid-19 issues...go ahead and sign up. Hop in the Way Back Machine and watch 2014-15 and tell me whether Teddy Bridgewater was as good, bad or average as you remember. Let's see if a few of us can get together and really evaluate Theodore Edmond Bridgewater. It's not like we got a lot else going on...heck, I am not supposed to even leave my house starting tomorrow. I am going to be watching a lot of Game Pass, some real debate and discussion would be just the thing to pass the time.

We can do Cousins too.
Is Diggs more of an asshole than we realized at the time... taunting penalty in the game I am watching now...
Any other topic, I got Game Pass and booze, so I will be doing something to pass the time.
I have already availed my self of the booze, if you can't tell.

Diggs got a taunting penalty once. Same as AB as far as I am concerned...

I'd love to take you up on this and it sounds super fun but I have to keep working though (I deliver to grocery stores). Last week was my company's biggest week in the last 15 years. If you want to re-watch some '14-'15 Teddy and post some thoughts I'm interested to read them. As a Teddy fan I'm curious to hear other opinions after a re-watch like this. Great idea VikingsBoss!

Yeah. They are in tear it down and rebuild mode. Franchise's all-time QB? Gone. Franchise's all-time leading TE? Gone. Pedestrian receiving corps, and a one-man attack in the running game. At best below-average line. Not saying they can't improve, but they have a lot of holes to fill in defense too.

Bridgewater isn't known for dragging all sorts of unbelievable production out of people if you recall. The Vikings offense ranked 28 and 31 in his two seasons starting here... before you talk about how little they passed, and leaned on AP, Bridgewater threw more passes in 2015 than Cousins did last year (a tiny bit of difference in production too).

He was more productive in New Orleans, but is D.J. Moore equal to Michael Thomas? Is Seth DeValve (don't even know who he is, do you-I didn't) equal to Jared Cook? He is going to lean heavily on McCaffrey...I would too, he's far and away their best player...but he averages 8.5 yards per catch, and can only give you 25 touches every game for so long.

What Carolina has right now is not tailor made for Bridgewater to be either productive or a winner next year. He's never been productive, but he's never been under .500 as a starter (excluding his one start in 2018). To win 8 games in Carolina would be a heck of a feat.
So, there you go. Written in stone, so to speak, if Teddy Bridgewater can lead Carolina to 8 wins next year? All glory be to him.

Kyle Allen looked good for about six weeks, then things fell apart because he is Kyle Allen. On a scale of Kyle Allen to Patrick Mahomes, where does Teddy Bridgewater rate? Anderson is overrated. Moore is good, Samuel's okay. Here's the thing about McCaffrey, and really all receiving backs in general. On their own, they don't dominate a game through the air, they need to be complemented because they (in general) do not generate much in yardage or TDs. If Christian McCaffrey catches 15 passes for 90 yards, I am likely quite content to let your passing game keep producing six yards a clip. So, unless Bridgewater can develop a relationship with Moore or Anderson and make him (Anderson) or keep him (Moore) as a threat, teams will let Christian McCaffrey rack up 200 catches for 1700 yards because that won't be enough to beat you.

wasn't sure if you were just being insulting to Teddy or not ...  yeah if i had time to watch NFL Game Pass, Teddy games would be what I'd watch.  so we'll see!  But those first years should be taken in context, as the first 2 years of a QB's career, not the conclusion on what kind of player he is from that point on.  I would expect you'll see the steady improvement throughout the seasons with moments of clutch performance, and flashes of star-dom.  I believe it was reporter Matt Collier who dove in, but you should also see some next gen type stat stuff showing Teddy's high performance in 3rd down and second halves of games. (i heard him in a podcast contrasting Teddy to Cousins at WAS in those situations.)

I like it. I think more people need to at least watch 2015 as closely as I did when I was doing breakdowns of Teddy back on VJ. I watched every single snap he took in 2015 at least 5 times each, and twice in slow motion. Mostly to gather data, like his drop distance, release time, throw distance etc. I also noted the accuracy of the pass, whether a receiver had to jump, dive, reach, contort, or whatever to catch a pass, and specifically why a pass was incomplete.

Then using the all-22 view, I looked to see if there were better options on every play or if he had missed anything. And yes, he missed a lot. I don't spend all this time railing on the kid for nothing. I feel I analyzed his game about as well as anyone could that year, which I know not many of his supporters have done.

As a basis for comparison, I then chose a somewhat above average QB at random to compare him too. Ironically that QB was 2015 Kirk Cousins. I put Kirk through the same scrutiny, and analyzed every pass he made in 2015. I came to the conclusion that he was a more confident and polished QB than Teddy.

One thing I didn't notice with Kirks game however, was the head problems. I might have to go back to watch him just to see if it's something I missed, or if it's just something that has gotten worse for him over time, because it seems like a pretty obvious thing to me now.

I also analyzed every pass of our opposing QB's that year for further comparison.

So yeah, lets get to it. Not that the way Teddy played in 2014-2015 will be any indication of how he'll play for the Panthers in 2020, but I didn't see much change in his game with the Saints last year over how he played in 2015. He's still a careful QB who relies a lot on the teammates around him to carry him. He's just not the type of QB who is ever going to put a team on his back and carry or elevate them to anything, and you're just not going to fill the trophy case with a starter like that, unless everyone around him is elite.

Take Favre for example. When he came here in 2009, his talent immediately elevated everyone around him to championship caliber. He even fooled the Seahawks into believing Sidney Rice was the next Jerry Rice. Teddy is the opposite, and I don't know why anyone would want a QB like that leading their team. Teddy would probably be a better buddy than Favre, but I'm not a fan of the Vikings for the feel good stories. I want to win, so I want the players who give us the best chance to do that. I don't care too much what they do off the field or in their free time, as long as they're not committing crimes. Man of the year, most charitable, I don't give a rats ass about any of that. That's participation trophy nonsense. I'd rather have the MVP and Super Bowl MVP on my team.

If Teddy ever wins a Super Bowl, I guarantee the RB or someone from the defense will be named MVP, or he'll do it holding a clipboard a la TJack.

So go on, load up the all-22 (coaches view) from 2015 and see for yourselves how often Teddy passed up an open guy downfield for the safer checkdown underneath.