Call Your Shot: Does Teddy Bridgewater Start Camp On The PUP List?

One week from today, the Minnesota Vikings will be holding their first Training Camp practice in what might be their last Training Camp in Mankato. According to the team’s official website, rookies, players that have not accrued a full season, “select injured players,” and “select quarterbacks” will report to Mankato on Sunday, the 23rd, with the first practices taking place on Monday, the 24th. (The rest of the team will report on Wednesday, the 26th, with their first practice coming on Thursday, the 27th.)

I don’t know if Teddy Bridgewater falls under the heading of “select quarterback” or “select injured players,” but since we’re this close to camp, it’s time for everyone to call their proverbial shot on this topic. . .particularly with what we’ve seen here over the past couple of weeks.

Will the Minnesota Vikings place Teddy Bridgewater on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) List at the start of Training Camp?

For much of the offseason, I believe that was the assumption that just about everyone had, particularly with the team not picking up Bridgewater’s fifth-year option on his contract, even with Sam Bradford going into the final year of his contract. But for the past week or two, we’ve been seeing videos that appear to show that Bridgewater has made significant progress in rehabilitating his knee injury from almost a year ago, and that he appears to have regained a significant amount of his movement ability.

It was also thought that the logic behind the team not picking up his fifth-year option was that, if he started the regular season on the PUP List, he would be forced to miss the first six weeks of the regular season, causing his contract to “toll” (per the language of the Collective Bargaining Agreement) and giving the Vikings another year of team control. The team would then have more time to decide what to do about Bradford as well.

And yet, seeing him moving and throwing and what have you in these videos makes it hard to believe that he’s really not Physically Unable to Perform. It certainly looks like he’s performing in these videos, as far as I can tell. I’m not a coach or a quarterback guru or anything, but for a guy that almost had his leg fall off last August, he looks like he’s doing okay to me.

Frankly, even with the progress we’ve seen recently, I have to believe that the team will, in fact, put Bridgewater on the PUP List to start camp. Bridgewater suffered an injury that very few suffer, particularly in a non-contact scenario, and I would think that this team wants to make absolutely, positively sure that he’s at 100% before even considering putting him out on the field in a “live fire” situation. If you bring him back too early and something happens, not only do you get second-guessed from here to eternity, but you’ve potentially put the future of your franchise in danger if you think that Bridgewater can return to his pre-injury form.

But that’s just my opinion on it. I want to know how much of the purple fan base thinks that Bridgewater will be placed on PUP and how many think he’ll be active and practicing when camp gets started. We’ll leave the poll open until the day before the “select” group of players mentioned above reports to camp, so there’s plenty of time to vote and discuss.