NFL Rumors: Teddy Bridgewater Likely Out for 2017 Season
After a horrific knee injury sidelined him for 2016, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater reportedly may miss all of the 2017 season too.
The Minnesota Vikings caught possibly the worst break imaginable just prior to the start of the 2016 NFL season. With only 10 days left in the preseason, starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater dropped back to pass when he suffered a non-contact knee injury that was particularly brutal. A torn ACL, dislocation of the knee, and multitude of structural damage were the results.
In response, Minnesota acted quickly in trading a first- and third-round pick to the Philadelphia Eagles to acquire Sam Bradford. The thought—or perhaps the hope—was that Bradford would keep the Vikings in the playoff hunt. More hopefully, the hope from fans was that is was only for one year and that Bridgewater could return for the 2017 season. The latter, unfortunately, does not look to be the case.
On Friday, Jason Cole of Bleacher Report reported that team officials believe that Bridgewater will miss the entire 2017 season for the Vikings as well. Given the severity of his knee injury, Cole reports that the timetable for recovery was set at around 19 months. Clearly, that would put him back on the field well after next season has concluded.
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Admittedly, we don’t know if Bridgewater would have fared any better than Bradford, who led Minnesota to missing the postseason. After all, they’re operating with an atrocious offensive line, suffered a litany of injuries outside of Bridgewater, and lack skill position players on the outside capable of making a serious impact. And that’s all before getting into the fact that Bridgewater was far from a finished product prior to the injury.
Even so, it now appears that Year 2 of Bradford starting in Minnesota is a formality. The real question now becomes what the Vikings will do in the future.
After all, there’s now way that Bridgewater comes back from a knee injury this severe the same player he was before. There’s a viable chance that his career as a starting quarterback could be effectively ended by this, as sad as that may be. So now the Vikings are faced with the decision of either re-signing Bradford after the 2017 season or looking at longer-term options in the form of drafting a quarterback.
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Whatever they ultimately choose, though, this is a devastating blow to the Vikings organizationally. Though not fully realized yet, they viewed Teddy Bridgewater as the future of their offense. Now that future is in jeopardy because of a freak injury and they have tough, critical decisions ahead.