Photo By Brian Curski
Written By Chris Schad
It was a warm night in early May when the Minnesota Vikings headed into the NFL Draft. After months of mind-numbing mock drafts and enough smoke screens to choke out the entire state of Colorado, fans were finally going to know who the future of their franchise was — especially at the quarterback position.
Ever since Christian Ponder had been knocked out and benched late in the 2013 season, the questions around the quarterback position remained for the Vikings. There was no way they could logically place the future of the franchise in Matt Cassel’s hands, plus the free-agent well was dried up with players that had been thrown onto the scrap heap.
With the draft the only solution, the Vikings seemingly narrowed their choices to two prospects.
In one corner, there was Johnny Manziel. The brash, but electric, signal caller from Texas A&M. Armed with a quarterback-friendly scheme and fantastic wide receiver Mike Evans, Manziel smashed records and wowed journalists by making the SEC look like it was the rookie level in Madden. Even his pro day, where he wore shoulder pads and blared rap music, created headlines. “Johnny Football” was a marketing machine waiting to happen, but could he win football games?
In the other corner was Teddy Bridgewater. The Louisville quarterback was the polar opposite of Manziel. He was quiet and unassuming but was effective on the gridiron in his own right. His pro day generated headlines, but in a different way as the media trashed his gloveless performance that was chalked up to jitters. Many thought Bridgewater could be good, but could he be good enough to win when it mattered?
The drama unfolded and the Vikings wound up taking Bridgewater after passing on Manziel with pick No. 9. After one year, Minnesota’s front office can thank the football gods for steering them away from the temptations of selecting Manziel, but it’s interesting to wonder what would have happened had the Vikings made a deal happen that May evening.
The Vikings Season Would Have Ended Much Differently
A couple weeks ago, I had a conversation with a Vikings fan. The state of the franchise came up and his eyes opened wide with excitement as he talked about the team’s future.
“I can’t remember a year where I haven’t had a gripe with the coach or the quarterback,” he explained. “It’s really something when you look at a team like the [Chicago] Bears and see they have no direction. We’ve been there. With Teddy and Zimmer, we finally have a direction.”
It’s easy to say Viking fans wouldn’t feel the same way if it were Manziel taking the controls in Week 3.
That was the game where Matt Cassel broke his foot and Bridgewater’s learning curve was greatly accelerated. While he was modest in his first handful of starts, he was never awful and got better as the season progressed.
A lot of the transition had to do with the work ethic that Bridgewater displayed. He came into training camp ready to learn and even did some work learning the playbook by importing it into Madden 15. (Yes, even his leisure time was dedicated to grasping his real job.)
That leads us to where Manziel has been. As an ESPN report blasted his work ethic, it’s fair to wonder just how bad the Vikings would be with him at the controls. Coming from a Aggie offense that included two top-10 offensive tackles (Luke Joeckel & Jake Matthews) and an All-America receiver (Mike Evans), he would have had issues being thrown into the fire with an offense that lacked Adrian Peterson, had Matt Kalil as his left tackle and no elite weapons in the passing game.
While Bridgewater excelled amidst the chaos, Manziel was likely to go down in flames, leading the Vikings to another failed quarterback experiment.
The Vikings Would Have Lost A Top-Ten Pick
With a 7-9 record, the Vikings find themselves 11th in the 2015 NFL Draft. If the Manziel experiment would have produced a lesser record, Minnesota would have been in the top-10 or possibly the top-five. It would have hurt more knowing that the Philadelphia Eagles had their pick.
In a report by Peter King shortly after the draft, it was revealed that to land Manziel, the Eagles required the Vikings to part with their 2015 first-round pick. It was a steep price to pay for a quarterback with several question marks, so Rick Spielman decided to wait and let Norv Turner select who he wanted with a later selection.
Losing a first-round draft pick would have been bad, but it could have been worse knowing that it was given up for a quarterback who struggled on the field and can’t stop partying off it. Having suffered through the second coming of Ryan Leaf, the Vikings would be lamenting the opportunity that could have presented itself with selecting Amari Cooper or Brandon Scherff — or even Marcus Mariota.
As we saw during the season, the Vikings are a team with plenty of holes to fill. A roster evaluation by ESPN and Pro Football Focus stated that Minnesota is 10 above-average players away from the Super Bowl and a top-10 selection would have been crucial to help fill those needs.
Fortunately, the Vikings don’t need to have those regrets with a No. 11 pick in their back pocket and a well-behaved quarterback in their stable.
The Mike Zimmer Era Would Never Have Gotten Off the Ground
When you think of the key to the Vikings success this season, a lot of the credit goes to Teddy Bridgewater and his ability to adapt to the NFL. The other part of that equation was the leadership of Zimmer, who helped the defense take a step forward and didn’t let the team give up once they were eliminated from playoff contention.
It’s feasible that Zimmer’s message would have been much tougher to send had the Vikings employed a seemingly lost cause at quarterback. If the quarterback wasn’t willing to put the time into the team, why would the rest of the team follow suit?
Theoretically, a 3-13 record might have been the final nail in general manager Rick Spielman’s coffin, and that would have triggered a mass exodus in the front office. For example, a new general manager could have wanted his own guy at the head coaching position. In that scenario, it’s possible that Zimmer could have been one-and-done and the Vikings would have been conducting another mass coaching search along with trying to find a new quarterback.
The Reality
To play “What If” is one of the most common exercises in sports. We all wonder what would have happened if our favorite teams took a left instead of going right or, in this case, taking Manziel instead of Bridgewater.
The truth is that we still don’t know whether the move to wait for Bridgewater was the right one. If he makes a leap in his second year while Manziel continues to drink bottles of champagne on a inflatable swan in Las Vegas, the Vikings can officially claim victory. If the light bulb for Manziel comes on, we could be looking at a draw or the next great draft blunder in the history of the franchise.
Only the Vikings can control how this story officially plays out, and after Year One, it seems like they went in the right direction.