Teddy Bridgewater’s development will determine future Minnesota Vikings success
By Luke Sims
Without further development at the quarterback position, future strong Minnesota Vikings teams will continue to fall short when it matters most.
The Minnesota Vikings are a built team. Going 11-5 in the modern NFL is no small feat and the Vikings managed to make it look easy in some cases.
Built around future Hall of Fame running back Adrian Peterson and a stalwart defense that is reliably opportunistic, the Vikes have the classic formula for success: strong defense and control the clock and game on the ground.
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As we have seen in moderately recent successful Vikings seasons, however, is that this formula does not necessarily get them over the top. It will get them to the playoffs, yes, but it won’t get them deep in the playoffs.
The modern NFL is a passing league and teams only go as far as their quarterback can carry them. This was especially apparent in this season’s playoffs, as can be seen when looking beyond Teddy Bridgewater and the Vikings.
Brian Hoyer of the Houston Texans was proven to be a true liability in the playoffs, absolutely destroying his team’s chances of success with his turnovers. Even the great Carson Palmer imploded and ruined the Arizona Cardinals’ chances of getting to the Super Bowl.
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While Palmer’s legacy is safe as one of the most resilient passers in NFL history and one of the most prolific for both the Cincinnati Bengals and the Arizona Cardinals, players like Hoyer will more likely be defined by their big losses (even if he says otherwise).
The Texans are the more relevant team to observe and compare Teddy Bridgewater and the Minnesota Vikings to. The Texans got to the playoffs on the strength of their defense, much like the Vikings. They cobbled together a competent enough offense (19th in the NFL) to pair with the defense, much like the Vikings (29th ranked offense).
Yet seeing Hoyer cost his team the game is exactly what some of us have come to expect from him. He essentially an elevated backup playing starter football in the NFL and plays as such. Bridgewater, in comparison, is expected to be the guy for the Vikings and to play as such.
Fortunately, part of his game is already there. Bridgewater is ridiculously accurate. Pro Football Focus highlights just how accurate the second-year quarterback was in 2015:
"What the traditional stats don’t show, however, is just how accurate Bridgewater is. The Viking led the NFL in 2015 with an accuracy percentage of 79.3. While this number is inflated by the large amount of short throws required by the Minnesota offense, it is no small feat to be the most accurate in the league. In fact, Teddy scored his best passing grades on throws between 10-€“19 yards, and broke even on throws over 20 yards."
The key takeaway here is not that Bridgewater’s accuracy percentage (a PFF stat measuring drops as passes that should have been caught) is so high – he is already expected to deliver accurate passes regularly – but that his best scores came when throwing 10-19 yards and that he was at least competent at deep passes over 20 yards.
Unlike many quarterbacks who enter the NFL with a strong arm and have to learn to become polished, Bridgewater has entered polished and needs to learn to take risks and truly carry his team. It appears that the ability is there, especially with high grades for intermediate passes.
It may be time for the Minnesota Vikings to let Teddy Bridgewater off his tight leash in 2016 and either sink or swim. Even a few drops in his completion percentage can be offset by more production in the passing game. It’s time to see just how much development has occurred for the first round pick after two years of letting the offense run through Adrian Peterson almost exclusively.
There’s cause for optimism surrounding Bridgewater. With two 300 yard games in 2015, he’s shown he can competently lead a productive passing attack. He finished the season with a passer rating above 100 in five games. He often passed the “eye test” and looked like a stud quarterback in 2015.
But there’s so much more room to grow. It’s time to see Bridgewater begin to carry the Vikings’ offense and turn it into a threat beyond Peterson.
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Until the Vikings let Bridgewater carry the offense and really develop as the leader of a productive offense, I fear the Vikings will continue to fall short when it matters most.