“More Optimism Around” the Vikings about Teddy Bridgewater

We have yet another Teddy Bridgewater update from Minnesota Vikings’ practice on Tuesday for your consumption, and it’s pretty positive news at that.

Close, personal friend of the DN™ Tom Pelissero reported today from Vikings’ camp that he feels there’s more optimism than ever around the team concerning Bridgewater’s return from injury. He talked about that today in his new gig at the NFL Network.

Bridgewater is reportedly doing all sorts of dropbacks and rollouts and things of that nature, all while not wearing a brace anymore. As we’ve said on numerous occasions, that’s all well and good. . .but the question, as Pelissero says, remains whether or not he can do it in a “live fire” sort of situation where he has to protect himself and still do all the things he needs to do.

The prevailing wisdom is that Bridgewater is still going to start the regular season on the Physically Unable to Perform List, and that makes sense. . .after all, if he’s not ready to protect himself and play in a preseason game, there’s no reason to think that immediately throwing him out there in the regular season is a good idea.

However, if he starts the season on the PUP, he has to miss the first six games at a minimum. After that, if the Vikings wanted to activate him at that point, they’d have three weeks (one of which would be a bye week) to allow him to practice with the team. . .something that he can’t do while he’s on the PUP. . .and evaluate whether or not to move him to the main roster or shelve him for the entire 2017 season.

In any case, it’s still pretty stunning progress that Bridgewater has made, given that we’re a couple weeks away from the one-year “anniversary” of him getting injured.