Not surprisingly, the Winnipeg CTV station chose not to show the Vikings-Jets matchup on Sunday, as neither team has realistic playoff hopes (the Vikings are still mathematically alive, but even if they won out, they’d still need an unlikely amount of help to earn a wildcard … they can’t win the NFC North this year). The Jets don’t have anything left to play for, aside from a better draft selection in 2015, but that didn’t mean they planned on laying down to the Vikings.

Fresh of his accolade of Rookie of the Week for last week’s game, Teddy Bridgewater showed that it wasn’t a fluke. Behind an offensive line that seems to get thinner by the minute — only two starters from the season opener are still healthy, and one of them is slumping terribly this year — Teddy played an excellent game, posting another stellar passing rating of 117.7 (which should get him consideration for rookie of the week honours again). Oddly, this was the third time Bridgewater has played against Geno Smith: they’d played against one another in high school and at university (Teddy won both of the earlier games).

The game started very well for Minnesota, as this short clip (courtesy of The Viking Age) shows:

After barely letting Geno Smith pass the ball at all last week against Miami, the Jets obviously wanted to get the QB going early this week against the Vikings.

Unfortunately things didn’t go very well for Geno. His first pass attempt of the game was picked off by Gerald Hodges who ran it in for a TD.

And it even got worse for Geno when Everson Griffen got a free shot at him while blocking for Hodges on the return.

It wasn’t a perfect game for the Vikings, as Cordarrelle Patterson showed why Charles Johnson has passed him on the depth chart, fumbling a kick return that the Jets recovered deep in Viking territory, then bobbling the next return, too. Placekicker Blair Walsh missed on two field goal attempts and the quality of the second one lead to speculation that Walsh had been injured earlier in the game, as the kick was both wide and short in a most un-Walsh-like way.

The defence was also suffering from unexpected bursts of poor play, with Josh Robinson being victimized by Percy Harvin (who always seems to save his best performances for playing against his old team), and Captain Munnerlyn having a really bad day. The Jets came into the game depending almost exclusively on their rushing attack, but somehow the Viking defensive backs allowed over 250 yards of passing for Geno Smith and his receivers.

Injuries took their toll again, as left guard Charlie Johnson was injured during the second half, so former Jet Vladimir DuCasse filled in for him for the rest of the game. This leaves only Matt Kalil and John Sullivan who started the season opener on the line (Phil Loadholt and Brandon Fusco are both on injured reserve). Defensive tackle Sharif Floyd also left the game with a knee injury and did not return. Safety Robert Blanton also left the game during the overtime period with a leg injury.

In overtime, the game ended when a screen pass from Bridgewater to Jarius Wright turned into an 87-yard scoring play, as blocks from Greg Jennings and Kyle Rudolph sprang Wright free and he sped down the right sideline unimpeded to the goal line.

ESPN‘s Ben Goessling says the game ball should go to Teddy Bridgewater for this week’s game:

Game ball: There are a few candidates, but it’ll go to Bridgewater, who hit 19 of his 27 passes, threw for 309 yards, continued to look more assertive and recognized the Jets’ blitz on the game’s final play. His only interception was a Hail Mary at the end of the first half, and he drove the Vikings into position to win the game in regulation before Blair Walsh missed a field goal. In a season where his development is probably the most important thing for the Vikings, he took a step forward Sunday.

At 1500ESPN, Derek Wetmore and Andrew Krammer talk about Sunday’s game, especially the development of Teddy Bridgewater:

At The Daily Norseman, Christopher Gates agrees with head coach Mike Zimmer that it’s Teddy’s team now:

Bridgewater was thrust into the fire in Week 3 in New Orleans … the same week that saw Rudolph go down with a groin injury that would keep him sidelined for six weeks and right guard Brandon Fusco go down for the year the day after he signed a massive contract extension. He has lost two other members of the team’s Week 1 offensive line in Phil Loadholt and Charlie Johnson. (Johnson got injured in Sunday’s win over the New York Jets and was replaced by Vladimir Ducasse.) Patterson is now, officially, an afterthought in the Minnesota offense, as Bridgewater’s new favorite target is Charles Johnson … a man that the Vikings poached off of the Cleveland Browns’ practice squad in Week 3.

And, in case nobody has noticed, Peterson hasn’t been around this season, either.

But Bridgewater has gone out and just kept on going out every week and, basically, developing on the fly. He had a great first start against the Atlanta Falcons, missed the next game at Green Bay with an ankle injury, and then had a couple of rough outings against the Detroit Lions and the Buffalo Bills (even though the Vikings could have won the game at Buffalo despite Bridgewater’s struggles). But he’s handled all of the ups and downs as well as you could hope for a rookie, as the overtime victory by the Minnesota Vikings over the New York Jets in Week 14 at TCF Bank Stadium was Bridgewater’s fifth victory of his rookie season.

Thirteen other quarterbacks were drafted in the 2014 NFL draft. They’ve combined for two victories this season … one for Oakland’s Derek Carr and one for Jacksonville’s Blake Bortles.

In his last six starts, Bridgewater has completed 62.4% of his passes for right around 220 yards/game. More importantly, he’s thrown nine touchdown passes to just three interceptions. . .and two of those interceptions came on Hail Mary passes (one at the end of the Chicago game, and one at the end of the first half against the Jets). He’s been doing all of this with a makeshift … to put it politely … offensive line, a largely underwhelming running game (anchored for most of the year by another rookie, Jerick McKinnon), and an inconsistent receiving corps.