Written By Sam Ekstrom
If there’s one thing that’s impossible to predict in the National Football League, it’s the development of young, promising quarterbacks.
There are the early success stories that set such a high bar. Within the past seven years, Andrew Luck, Joe Flacco, Russell Wilson, Andy Dalton and Matt Ryan were given the keys to their respective offenses immediately as rookies and led their teams to the playoffs.
The Manning brothers – Peyton and Eli – both waited to explode until their second season after rough rookie campaigns. Same with Matt Stafford if you discount his true second season that ended prematurely due to shoulder surgery.
Then there are the late bloomers. Drew Brees took three years to break through, as did Cam Newton. Jay Cutler didn’t post a record above .500 until his fourth season, though some argue the successful version of Jay Cutler is anomalous.
So where does Teddy Bridgewater fit in the conversation after an even-keeled 6-6 rookie season where he finished 11th in completion percentage, 15th in yards per attempt, 19th in yards per game and 22nd in passer rating? For a coaching staff that thrives on tempering media hype surrounding the team as a whole, they are quick to heap praise on their second-year quarterback. “Based on where we got to last year and where we think we’re going,” said offensive coordinator Norv Turner last Monday, “I think we have a top-flight quarterback.”
“I have high expectations,” said Zimmer on Wednesday. “I would hate for a player’s expectations not to be as high as mine, and most of our players have extremely high expectations in themselves.”
A lot is being thrown on Bridgewater’s plate in Year 2. He’s the clear-cut no. 1 quarterback with no notable insurance policy besides 35-year-old lifetime backup Shaun Hill. He’s being asked to engineer an offense that features a former Pro Bowl MVP (Kyle Rudolph), a former NFL MVP (Adrian Peterson) and a former Super Bowl champion (Mike Wallace) – weapons that would make Tom Brady salivate. “I love it,” said Bridgewater on Wednesday of the high expectations. “I don’t back down.”
There’s a lot to like about Bridgewater’s attitude. He comes across as humble, routinely passing credit to innocuous backup players instead of taking it for himself. He works hard, even staying late at muggy, Mankato practices to run sprints with Mike Wallace. And by all accounts, he’s an avid scholar of the game. “He has no limits as being able to learn and pick things up,” said Turner during OTAs.
There’s been praise heaped on Bridgewater for his ability to keep the Vikings afloat while chaos ran amok in 2014. Theoretically, say the optimists, if Teddy can go 6-6 with a cupboard bare of effective skill players and a patchwork offensive line, he should be able to do a lot with myriad weapons and a healthy line in Year 2.
But in a topsy-turvy league where a quarter of the games per year can swing on a single play or a bad call, will Bridgewater’s expected improvement be enough to separate the Vikings from the doldrums of the seven- to nine-win crowd? Ten NFL teams – virtually a third of the league — won seven, eight or nine games last year, putting them at .500 or one game away. Only one made the playoffs: the 7-8-1 Panthers, who won a historically terrible NFC South. Philip Rivers, Drew Brees and Colin Kaepernick were all shut out of the playoffs. A year earlier, 12 teams finished in the 7-9 to 9-7 range. Two were able to sneak in (Green Bay and San Diego). There was no sign of Tony Romo, Eli Manning, Joe Flacco or Ben Roethlisberger in those playoffs.
To the point, above average quarterbacks miss the playoffs every year. If Bridgewater again falls in the dreaded middle third of the league, it doesn’t necessarily mean doom for the young quarterback; rather that the league is jam-packed with talented teams and talented quarterbacks, and the 12-team playoff format doesn’t always have space for all of them.
Teddy vs Cam
Despite being selected 31 picks apart in their respective drafts, Bridgewater and Cam Newton are both first-round picks. Cam no. 1; Teddy no. 32. That might be where the objective similarities end. Newton attended SEC powerhouse Auburn and won a BCS Championship. He is a 6-foot-6, 260-pound hulk with 33 career rushing touchdowns in his four-year career. Bridgewater went to Louisville, which joined the unrenowned American Athletic Conference before his final year. He’s 6-foot-2, 215 pounds.
Newton started all 16 games his rookie season and set NFL rookie records for passing yards, rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. Despite his Panthers only winning six games, the sky was the limit in 2012. “Oh, man. The hype was real big,” said Newton’s 2012 teammate and current Vikings corner Captain Munnerlyn on Monday. It wasn’t a question of Newton being one of the league’s best quarterbacks, but whether he’d win the MVP award, according to a Bleacher Report story from Jimmy Grappone.
“Newton is a football savant, that rarely gifted athlete who has the Blake Griffin-esque ability to roll out of bed and make SportsCenter’s Top 10 on a weekly basis based on physical talent alone, but who also has a Michael Jordan-esque dedication to his craft and a football acumen to understand and process the game that rivals Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.”
Newton saw his yardage, completion percentage, touchdown passes and QBR drop in 2012. The Panthers won just seven games – stuck in the league’s middle third. “Cam, I don’t know if he played his best football that year,” Munnerlyn told Cold Omaha. I think teams were used to him. Gave them a full offseason for teams to see what kind of athlete he was.”
For Newton, his leap didn’t occur until Year 3. He posted the highest completion percentage and touchdown-to-interception ratios of his career and led the Panthers to a 12-4 record that won the NFC South. Munnerlyn believes that the same hype that harmed Newton his second year is what fueled him in Year 3. “If you buy into the hype and go out there and do what you’re supposed to do, like Cam, sometimes he bought into it and he went out there and played his best football,” Munnerlyn said. “Some guys can do that.”
While the sophomore hype surrounding Bridgewater may resemble the 2012 excitement for Newton, the two quarterbacks possess very different personalities. Newton has undergone personality changes through the years in Carolina, at one point admitting he entered the NFL with a “very disgusting” attitude. While it took Newton several years to realize how he was being perceived, Bridgewater, to this point, has shown no cracks. He’s been cerebral and unflappable. “He’s a quiet guy,” said Munnerlyn. “He’s not too much out there doing this, doing that, outspoken like that. Teddy’s just calm, cool and collected, the Triple C.”
If public statements can be used as a true indicator, Bridgewater hasn’t given the hype a second thought. He recognizes that duplicating last year’s effort won’t be good enough. He’s got to be even better for the Vikings to make real waves. “If I play at that same level this year,” said Bridgewater this offseason, “we’ll be 7-9 again, and that’s not good enough.”
Photo: Luke Inman
Sam Ekstrom is a staff writer for Cold Omaha at 105 The Ticket and a play-by-play broadcaster in Burnsville, Minn. Hear him on 105 The Ticket Sunday mornings from 8-11 a.m. on “The Wake Up Call.” Follow him on Twitter @SamEkstrom for further insights.