DETROIT -- He had him. Receiver Jarius Wright was open and was headed toward the sidelines. All Teddy Bridgewater had to do was drop the ball in Wright's hands, and the Minnesota Vikings would have had a first down at midfield with the clock stopped at about the 40-second mark in the fourth quarter.
Bridgewater saw him right away. He lofted a pass. It sailed high and wide, ever so slightly, and beyond Wright's reach. The play was the Vikings' best chance to mount a credible game-winning drive in their eventual 16-14 loss to the Detroit Lions. More importantly, it capped a valuable learning experience on a mostly positive day.
"This," Bridgewater said, "is a game of inches.
"I believe that if I completed that pass to Jarius, that makes it much easier. We move the sticks, take shots downfield and try to get the ball into the end zone."
I found Sunday to be a turning point of sorts for Bridgewater, the Vikings and outside perception. The conversation has changed.
We're no longer debating whether Bridgewater, the No. 32 overall pick of the draft, can play. His steady ascendance continued Sunday, his third consecutive game with at least a 70 percent completion rate. Bridgewater threw 41 passes in a pass-first game plan against one of the NFL's top defenses, and it seems moot to break down whether it means Bridgewater can be the Vikings' long-term answer. He is well on his way to demonstrating it. The Vikings are 4-3 in his past seven starts, with all three losses by one score, and the organization has already committed to it.
Instead, we're picking through a handful of marginal mistakes to help explain a two-point loss against the NFC North divisional leader. Bridgewater completed 31 passes for 315 yards Sunday, but three misfires scuttled the Vikings' chances.
One was the pass to Wright. The other two came in the second quarter, when Bridgewater threw back-to-back interceptions to set up the Lions to cut into a 14-0 deficit. On the first, his pass to receiver Charles Johnson on a crossing route sailed high and into the hands of safety Glover Quin. It's only fair to note that Johnson fell. "He was collisioned," coach Mike Zimmer said, implying a missed pass interference call. Bridgewater called it "bang-bang."
The second interception, Bridgewater admitted, was "a horrible throw." He was late and behind receiver Greg Jennings on an out route, and Lions cornerback Darius Slay capitalized.
"It was a bad throw," Zimmer said. "I don't know if I've ever seen him throw that way before, at least in a long time. He missed those throws, and the only other one, to Jarius Wright, and he just overthrew him a bit."
Indeed. Three throws in 41 attempts largely spelled the difference in Sunday's game.
It's true that Bridgewater contributed to two game-management issues on the Vikings' final two possessions. He took too much time to return to the huddle after a sprintout pass, forcing the Vikings to use a timeout. On another, he didn't hear the entire playcall before his coach-quarterback communicator cut out at the league-mandated 15-second mark.
These are the plays you don't expect from an experienced high-end quarterback. But let's take a step back here and recognize that we're nipping on the edges rather than snaking for the gut. In the 15th week of his first NFL season, Bridgewater has dismissed the macro and pushed us into a micro discussion about the few plays he didn't make.
"The more he plays, the better he gets," Zimmer said. "He had couple bad plays today, but for the most part he shows the ability to do what we need to do offensively."
That's more than progress. In today's NFL, that's ascendance of the highest order.
