Teddy Bridgewater to improve indoors for the Minnesota Vikings
By Adam Carlson
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater called TCF Bank Stadium’s outdoor field home since being drafted, but will he improve at U.S. Bank Stadium?
Playing football outdoors can be a problem. Not only do you have the rain and snow that Minnesota can be known for, but windy days can also have a major impact on a team’s passing game. With the Minnesota Vikings moving indoors to U.S. Bank Stadium for the 2016 NFL season, these factors will become a thing of the past for home games.
With that comes the question of Teddy Bridgewater. The young quarterback put together a solid year, but will need to improve on several parts of his game if the team hopes to make it to the next level. In a recent interview that Mike Florio had with Vikings GM Rick Spielman on Pro Football Talk’s NBC Sports Radio show, the topic of Bridgewater moving indoors was discussed.
"“I think it’s just in general, quarterbacks playing indoors (play better),” Spielman said”If you look at Teddy’s stats and how he performed when we were indoors, in Detroit or even out in Arizona, some of those ideal conditions, we feel he can take another step forward. But he still has to play outdoors.”"
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The idea that Bridgewater will get better indoors might be a fun concept, but there isn’t much evidence to support this topic. So far in his career, the former Louisville passer has a 2-3 record in stadiums that are domed or have a retractable roof that was closed. He also threw only 4 touchdowns in those games to go along with three interceptions.
However, there is a silver lining. When passing indoors, Teddy Bridgewater has a higher completion percentage. The margin isn’t even close, as there is a 7% difference in completions when comparing indoors to outdoors. There is also the idea of passing yards, which go up by almost 40 yards per game when playing in a stadium with a roof.
To listen to the entire segment with Mike Florio talking to Rick Spielman, here is the audio from Pro Football Talk Live:
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It will be interesting to see if Bridgewater can improve upon his previous indoor games and his overall body of work when the Minnesota Vikings play their home games in U.S. Bank Stadium. If nothing, Bridgewater will have a stable place to try to work out some of his areas of improvement now that he can anticipate there being no interference from the elements.