Photo – Mike Ehrmann, Getty Images
With only a week left in the NFL regular season, former Cards great and current Minnesota Vikings rookie QB Teddy Bridgewater has proven despite all logic, all reason, and all forms of rational thinking that an NFL pro day is actually NOT the best measuring stick when evaluating NFL talent.
Shocking, I know, but as it turns out, how a player actually plays the game is remarkably valuable when it comes to predicting how a player will continue to play the game. The most accurate passer in college football in 2013 has continued his high level of play in a different uniform on a different day at another level and has distinguished himself as the best rookie QB in the league.
He has started 11 games this season for the Vikings, and while he had his share of rookie “welcome to the NFL” moments early on in the year, those moments have diminished more and more every week, as he has begun to look like the player every logical-thinking football fan imagined he would be. In the past four weeks, he has completed 72.6% of his passes, thrown for over 300 yards twice, has posted a 100+ passer rating in 3 of the 4 games, and had it not been for a late game collapse (for which he was not responsible) at Miami against the Dolphins on Sunday, he would have been the winning QB 3 out of the 4 games.
More impressive, however, may be the fact that he is growing as fast as he is with hardly any help on the offensive end. WR Greg Jennings can still produce in spurts, but his age is beginning to show. WR Cordarrelle Patterson appeared on his way to a breakout season, but his poor route running has reverted him to being productive mainly on special teams and on reverses. His best options have been Charles Johnson and Jarius Wright. Johnson is a former 7th round pick who is on his third team in three years and has rarely seen the field since being drafted in 2013, while Wright is an undersized slot WR with a knack for the big play. It may be even tougher, however, being without a weapon all thought he would have at his disposal: RB Adrian Peterson.
The Vikings backfield has put on a clinic in mediocrity without Peterson this season, and Bridgewater has still been able to get better every game and help the Vikings to 5 wins. He is not a finished product, but he has proven to be the most polished rookie QB in the league with a bright future ahead of him. Once he gets a legitimate #1 WR along with someone to hand the ball off to, he could emerge as one of the league’s superstars, making his doubters look dumber and dumber with every year passing.
For example…
Skip Bayless
Let’s first start at the bottom with renowned know-nothing Skip Bayless, whose job is basically to say ridiculously stupid things in a high-pitched voice while having a look on his face that suggests he has not taken a dump in three weeks. He rarely says anything intelligent on First Take (and I’m being generous using the word “rarely”), but he displayed another level of aburdity prior to the draft, when he said this about Bridgewater…
Teddy Bridgewater will frustrate Vikings just the way Ponder did. Good kid, just not accurate enough.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) May 9, 2014
Ah, yes…those chants of “Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!” at TCF Bank Stadium must be jeers in disguise, I suppose. And 71% accuracy, the best in college football in 2013, had to have been a fluke. Did you see his pro day?!?! Well, as it turns out…
Teddy Bridgewater is the first rookie QB to ever complete >70% of his passes in four straight games.
— Rich Hribar (@LordReebs) December 22, 2014
Oops. Next time (or any time, really), try doing a little research and rational thinking, Skip.
Ron Jaworski
“When you watch Bridgewater (at his pro day), he struggled with accuracy, he struggled with velocity on the deep throw and the sideline throws. And the one thing I thought was going to be his trademark was the accuracy — and he struggled in areas. I think clearly, in this pro day workout, Teddy Bridgewater took a step backwards.”
This insight brought to you by the most obnoxious person to ever grace the Monday Night Football booth (not named Tony Kornheiser). First off, due to some horrible advice, Teddy chose not to wear a glove. Might that have affected his throwing? Absolutely. But don’t tell that to “Jaws,” who decided it was best to throw three years of tape in favor of one afternoon of a shorts and tee shirt workout.
Todd McShay
McShay is ESPN’s resident draft expert, especially when seated next to his loony counterpart, Mel Kiper, but this quote here…well, Todd, you may want to reconsider.
“Big picture: The bottom line is that the teams drafting at the top, and there were general managers, head coaches, scouts, offensive coordinators from all of those teams here, they wanted to be wowed and they leave Louisville having not been wowed about what they saw.”
Any NFL general manager drafting players using a pro day as the primary evaluation tool will not be an NFL GM for long. Don’t believe it? JaMarcus Russell had one of the most impressive pro day performances of all time, and we all know how that turned out. Drafting a QB based on his pro day is about as ludicrous as drafting a QB based on the opinion of a homeless man. McShay has hit on a lot of players, but I’m guessing he won’t be running an NFL franchise any time soon.
Mike Mayock
The captain of the anti-Bridgewater team, no one proved to know less about this draft class of QBs than the NFL Network “expert.” Skinny knees…small hands…bad pro day. These were all that mattered to Mayock, apparently, who went out of his way to slight Bridgewater every chance he got all the way to the 32nd pick of the draft, where Bridgewater would be taken. Even prior to the pick, which most assumed would be Bridgewater, Mayock could audibly be heard saying, “It’s gotta be (David) Carr.” And when it turned out not to be the former Fresno State QB, Mayock had a look of shock on his face, as if some GM decided to insanely draft a QB based on merit, intangibles, and production rather than a pro day and knee size. Congrats on the loss of all credibility, Mike.
Sure, there were others, and they, too, look ridiculous. Bridgewater, meanwhile, is starting to look like a veteran. It has not been a shock to anyone who watched him extensively during his college career, but maybe the folks who decided it was best to judge him on a pro day are beginning to feel as crazy as they all sounded. However, there is one group who could not have been happier with the eye-rolling analysis: the Vikings.
The men representing the purple and gold may be forever in debt to sucb terrible analysis, as they now have a new face of their franchise, and as it turns out, it appears to be the perfect fit for Bridgewater. Offensive coordinator Norv Turner has had nothing but praise for his young QB, who had this to say about some of the “analysis”that had been geared towards Bridgewater.
“Sometimes I see some oft hat stuff and I’m not sure who it is that’s evaluating or what their background is, what their qualifications or even what their experience is. So, I thought I’d weigh in because I know my background, I know my qualifications, and I do have a little bit of experience with this. I think this is, for a young guy and for a rookie put in the situation he’s been put in…it’s pretty incredible to me what he’s done, how he’s handled it, the things he’s gotten done and what he’s really done is made everyone around him better and that’s the quality you’re looking for.”
Now, the critical talk has gone silent, and people are starting to see Bridgewater for who he is, on and off the field, and for Minnesota, they could not be happier. As SI’s Doug Farrar said, “The Vikings have some personnel work to do in the offseason, but they seem to have the most important position locked up.”
That they do, Doug, that they do.