In a game he played a few miles from where he grew up, in front of scores of family and friends who approached his mother for tickets, Teddy Bridgewater was at his most resourceful on Sunday in Miami.
He completed passes to nine different receivers, connecting with luminaries like Chase Ford, Rhett Ellison and Adam Thielen for key completions. He went 6-for-7 on third downs, fashioning a perfect passer rating of 158.3 in those situations. He hit Greg Jennings on a corner route for a 21-yard touchdown in the second quarter, and found the receiver for 20 yards on the sideline to convert a third-and-13 in the third. Bridgewater has been forced to make the most of the uncertainty around him all year, and by now, he looks comfortable doing it.
"Early in the year I just struggled and I wasn’t playing good football," Bridgewater told reporters in Miami. "[Offensive coordinator] Norv Turner said something to us a couple of weeks back and he told us that we were going to be playing the best football in December. If you think about it we’ve been playing pretty good for the most part. We’ve just been executing and playing pitch and catch, whether it’s me throwing the ball to the wide receivers or the running backs doing a great job following the offensive line and making plays for this team.”
Bridgewater has completed 73 percent of his passes in his last four games, but of all his bona fides, his production on third down might be the most impressive. The six quarterbacks with the highest QB ratings on third downs this season -- Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo, Tom Brady, Joe Flacco and Philip Rivers -- could all be quarterbacking in the playoffs next month, and Bridgewater's improvement in sustaining drives is an important step toward him becoming a good NFL starter. Since Week 13, only four QBs -- Manning, Romo, Matt Ryan and Rodgers -- have been better on third downs than Bridgewater, and if he's able to keep that up, he'll have shown a major sign of progress at the end of his rookie year.
"I don't really care much about his native Florida. All I cared about is how he played and I thought he played well," coach Mike Zimmer told reporters. "He had one interception and it was bad luck, a tipped ball. Most of the time I thought he did a good job scrambling out of the pocket. I thought he made some great throws. I thought he played with composure. I thought he continued to do all of those things.”
The rookie will have one more start in his rookie season, at home on Sunday against the Chicago Bears, but through 12 games, he has a 64.2 completion percentage, 2,710 yards, 13 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Those are very solid numbers for a rookie, and if you extrapolate what Bridgewater has done in his last eight games -- a 65.5 percent completion rate, 1,898 yards, 12 TDs and six interceptions -- you've got QB production that should be good enough to win consistently. The biggest goal of the 2014 season might have been for the Vikings to see if Bridgewater gives them a foundation to build on, and he's certainly hinting that he does.
"There are some positives heading in to the end of this season," Bridgewater said. "Like I said we’ve able to play much better than the way we started the season out. We’re just playing for one another now.”
