Minnesota Vikings hopes rest on Teddy Bridgewater
By Ryan Palmer
The Minnesota Vikings’ hopes of making it to the Super Bowl rest largely on the young shoulders of Teddy Bridgewater.
With the draft over and OTA’s underway Minnesota Vikings fans around the world are more than optimistic about our chances this season. We are dreaming of Moritz Boehringer tearing it up with highlights blasting 24/7 on the German Youtube. AP runs for 2,000 yards in one game against the Packers and Kyle Rudolph catches 20 TD’s. Let me temper our dreams and create a waking nightmare by saying two words, Blair Walsh, we as purple fans know that we can never let our guard down because we seem to always be disappointed in the end. I’m personally sick of kickers controlling the outcome of close playoff games, I haven’t forgotten you either Gary Anderson..
What if our offense was actually scoring some red zone TD’s instead of settling for field goals? This upcoming season all eyes will be focused on our promising young quarterback.
With words like “franchise” being thrown around I find it my fan duty to simmer the hype. Bridgewater has been a class act so far, no denying that. Amazing character who appears to be stepping it up as the leader, everything you would want to see in a person from a personality standpoint. An 11-5 season is tremendous, however…..
Looking closer at Bridgewater’s statistics you see a lot of good- an 88.7 completion percentage, as well as the bad- only 14 TD’s. Christian Ponder tossed a few more than that his second year in the league. One ESPN fantasy football prognosticator even has Bridgewater ranked the 33rd best QB, remembering there are only 32 NFL teams the author is not predicting a productive year for Teddy. I understand fantasy numbers mean nothing if the Vikings win the Super Bowl but to get there Teddy will have to take a big step forward in the passing game. Especially with teams keying in on Adrian Peterson in the Red Zone.
The pundits will talk about the shoddy O-line play and that’s fair, however like the great Zimmer has said, “no more excuses”. With the additions of Alex Boone and Andre Smith, plus guys returning from injury (Phil Loadholt and John Sullivan) the Vikings seemed to have addressed that issue while adding much needed depth to a possible top 5 offensive line. AP is still at the top of his game and our young receivers are promising. Throw in a nasty top 5 Defense and a pinch of good luck and we should have a contender
If we are not in the chase for the NFC North at the end of the regular season it will most likely fall back on Bridgewater’s shoulders. This year will answer a lot of questions and being a lifelong fanatic of this team we may be asking one more, why did we pass on Derek Carr?