With the NFL’s league year coming to a close, Minnesota has four quarterbacks on the roster, three of whom are going to become free agents at the start of the new league year. The three potential free agents are Sam Bradford, Case Keenum, and Teddy Bridgewater. The sole remaining player under contract is Kyle Sloter, who the Vikings grabbed from the Denver Broncos on cut-down at the end of the 2017 preseason. Bridgewater’s contract situation has been in question as he was not activated off the PUP (physically unable to perform) list until after the sixth game of the 2017 season — the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with the players’ association seemed to indicate that the final year of his rookie deal would “toll”, putting him under contract with the team for an additional year at the same salary as in 2017. A report on Tuesday said that the Vikings would not press that claim, and Bridgewater would be considered a free agent this coming league year.
Since the career-wrecking knee injury to Daunte Culpepper in the 2005 season, the Vikings have started games with 15 different quarterbacks. If ever a team has been desperate for consistent, high-quality play at the quarterback position, the Vikings are that team (okay, if pressed, I’ll admit that the Cleveland Browns have had it worst of all). Aside from the 2009 season’s Brett Favre revenge tour, the closest the team has seen to consistent, high-quality quarterback play was with Teddy Bridgewater under centre. Sam Bradford looked great for the first few games of the 2016 and the first game of 2017. Case Keenum had a career year in relief of Bradford, but the last few games appeared to show him regressing to his career mean at just the wrong point in the season. Nobody outside the Vikings organization knows how well Teddy has recovered from his knee injury, and I don’t expect the team to share that knowledge until Bridgewater is under contract with them or with a different team.
Christopher Gates summarizes the state of play:
We know the story of what Bridgewater has been through over the past two seasons, and his getting back into a game this past season against the Cincinnati Bengals was a genuinely great moment in a season that was filled with them. From a personal standpoint, it’s a bit sad to hear that the Vikings won’t be bringing Bridgewater back.
On the other hand, it’s a business above everything else. Nobody knows how far Bridgewater has progressed better than the Vikings do, and if they don’t think he’s ready to step in and be the guy at quarterback … well, then it stands to reason that he’s not going to be the quarterback of the future that the Vikings hoped when they drafted him in 2014. It’s not the Vikings’ fault, it’s not Teddy Bridgewater’s fault, it’s not anybody’s fault, really. Bridgewater appeared to be ready to take the next step in his development prior to his injury, and now it appears that the team doesn’t think he’s progressed to the point of being able to help the team at this juncture.
I’m not sure how big the market for Bridgewater is going to be, given his question marks. Perhaps the Vikings think that teams will give him a miss early in the free agency period and that they could potentially bring him back later. Perhaps these rumors are just that … rumors. Perhaps Bridgewater will be back with the Vikings when it’s all said and done after all.
But, if the report is accurate, it appears that the Teddy Bridgewater era in Minnesota could, potentially, be over before it ever really got a chance to get off the ground. In a perfect world, Bridgewater would be able to realize his pre-injury potential in a Vikings’ uniform, but as it stands now, it doesn’t appear that’s going to be the case.
If it’s true that the team is not going to be attempting to re-sign Bridgewater, then I’m quite upset about the decision. There’s a lot of fan chatter that the Vikings are going to attempt to sign former Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins (if the New York Jets don’t just send a convoy of Brinks trucks to Cousins’ house, anyway), which would definitely shut the door on any of the current Vikings quarterbacks being back in 2018.
I don’t dislike Cousins, and under other circumstances, I might welcome the idea of him becoming the team’s franchise quarterback, but I’m a staunch member of the Bridgewater Underground, and we’ve been through this before:
It was a fitful sleep, the kind where you fall asleep and then awaken; 20 minutes here, 45 minutes there. There was a feeling of uneasiness across the land, and plans were in motion should the Thing We Feared Most come to pass. At times like this, when a man is alone with his thoughts, it’s tough to not play events in your mind again, over and over. Am I doing the right thing? How will history remember us? Can I make it until morning before I have to get out of bed to pee?
Just as I was falling back to sleep, the phone rang. A phone call this late at night/early in the morning was rarely good news, and as the phone reached five…six…now seven rings, I knew that there was nothing left to do but answer it.
“Please, let this not be what I think”, I thought to myself as the word hello passed my lips.
For a moment, just enough time to make me think that this was a wrong number, or even a butt dial, there was silence on the other end. But then, just as hope began to rise in me, it was dashed. Dashed like a Brett Favre pass over the middle in the NFC Championship game.
“The long sobs of Spergeon Wynn wound my heart with a monotonous languor.”
Click. I didn’t even get a chance to acknowledge.
No. It’s happened. They did it, didn’t they?
I waited for a second to let the phrase that would key the revolution sink in.
The long sobs of Spergeon Wynn wound my heart with a monotonous languor.
No. Please, no.
It happened. Matt Cassel is the starter, and Teddy Bridgewater will ride the pine. The great thing about the Teddy Bridgewater Underground is that no underground cell can be traced back to another. My phone, as were all of the phones in The Underground, was encrypted to the point that even the NSA would have problems locating and tracing it. As long as calls were kept under a minute, and code words were used, messages could be passed freely, almost defiantly, to the rest of The Underground.
But then, “Saxyprince” pointed out there might well be devious plots being laid right before our eyes:
[Rick] Spielman has been the Vikings [General] Manager since 2012, and he is not new to the poker game that is the off-season. Spielman can call GMs, agents, scouts at any time to get the information he needs about Cousins. The only person who stands anything to gain from multiple teams showing interested in Kirk Cousins is Kirk Cousins.
During the Super Bowl media sessions, Adam Thielen named Kirk Cousins as someone the Vikings could pursue. This seemed highly unusual for a player to name another quarterback for their team to bring in. Players are coached what to say, and more importantly what not to say publicly. It would be rare for a player to make a mistake like that amid the current quarterback drama. Thielen was likely told to name Cousins, and to do it in a way that seemed organic. A wide receiver of his caliber likely does not care who is under center, as long as they can play well enough to help the team win.
This sheds light on the next part of the hypothesis, maybe the Vikings do not want Cousins, but Keenum and Bridgewater. It benefits the Vikings to manipulate the desperation of other quarterback needy teams. If the Vikings can feint interest enough in Cousins, that could drive other teams to increase their offers to land Cousins services. The Vikings will fold their hand on Cousins under the guise they got out-bid.
It would not be surprising for the Vikings to show “interest” in Bradford in the coming weeks to further this strategy.
The next part is a bit tricky though, but if done right could be what the Vikings want all along. The Vikings could potentially have a winning hand, they can’t show with Bridgewater. If Bridgewater is healthy, and looks like he could play at a high level, the Vikings will want to downplay it. They will want to make it seem as if Bridgewater is damaged goods, and they do not really want him, thus letting him “test the market.” Teams will then undercut Bridgewater, and the Vikings will swoop in with a better hand(the one they were always going to play), and win the pot. They could do the same with Keenum if they want the two to have a camp battle.
Of course this could all be wrong, and it may be true the Vikings are interested in Cousins, and want him to be their franchise quarterback. The off-season has barely started and the poker game is starting to intensify. The Vikings could have the winning hand from the very start.
