Zimmer: “No Timetable” For Teddy Bridgewater’s Return

Earlier this week, we saw Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback Teddy Bridgewater doing some agility drills in his quest to come back from the non-contact knee injury that ended his 2016 season before it could even get started. While it does provide some hope for those of us that are hoping to see #5 back on the field soon, we still don’t know what sort of time frame we’re looking at for Bridgewater’s return.

Apparently, this puts us in the same boat as Vikings’ head coach Mike Zimmer. Zimmer was interviewed. . .sans eye patch. . .by Trey Wingo of ESPN on Sunday morning, and did not provide any specific timetable for Bridgewater’s return.

The injury to Bridgewater led to the Vikings making a deal with the Philadelphia Eagles for quarterback Sam Bradford. Bradford is under contract through the end of this season (as things stand right now), and I’ve always been of the impression that part of the reason the Vikings made this deal is because they knew that Bridgewater was a 50/50 proposition (at best) to be ready for the start of the 2017 season.

What are the Vikings going to do with Bradford going forward? Well, I’m assuming that a lot of that has to do with just how well Bridgewater’s rehabilitation is going. If he’s not ready to go at the start of Training Camp, the obviously Bradford will be the guy going forward. If he is ready, it would likely be an open competition between the two players.

Bradford is due to make $17 million in the final year of his contract. . .this sounds like a ridiculous amount of money (and I’m sure people will argue that it is regardless of any sort of context), but among quarterbacks in the NFL that figure only puts him as the 17th-highest paid quarterback in the league. The team could reduce that figure by signing him to some sort of extension, but I would have to think that Bridgewater’s progress would play a role in that as well.

We know that the Vikings have had problems at the quarterback position for quite a while now. With Bridgewater (per Zimmer) progressing in his rehab and Bradford on the team for at least the short-term, the Vikings might have the opposite problem. . .they might actually have two good quarterbacks and they might not have to worry about the season going into the toilet if the starter gets injured. Frankly, this is a problem that I would welcome for this franchise.

We’ve got a whole offseason to see how this is going to shake out. Isn’t that going to be ever so much fun?