Has it really been more than eight years?
It’s been a while since we talked about Teddy Bridgewater, but in a recent interview the former Minnesota Vikings quarterback talked about the moment that we all remember about Bridgewater’s brief time in Minnesota.
On an episode of The Pivot Podcast with former NFL stars Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder, and Fred Taylor, Bridgewater talked about the day his Vikings career changed. That was 30 August 2016 when he suffered a non-contact leg injury in practice that saw him get rushed to the hospital and, from numerous accounts, nearly lose his leg.
You can see the full episode of the podcast below.
The part where Bridgewater talks about the injury comes about nine and a half minutes into the video, and Bridgewater suspects that he had done something to his knee prior to the practice where he suffered his catastrophic injury, specifically in the preseason game against the Chargers a few days prior.
This was back when we had four preseason games, and we were going into the fourth preseason game and the starters are gonna rest. Practice about two days and then you shut it down for the rest of training camp. Prior to that week we played the Chargers in the new stadium. That was my first game playing in the new stadium. I had a big third down run where I juked a defender, and I think that’s when I tore my ACL. But, the week went on and I was like “Man, it’s just camp legs,” you know, I’ll be alright, just let me get through today.
And before practice I was like, “Something just don’t feel right.” You know, behind the back of my knee it just feels crazy or something. But I was like, “This is the last day, I’m gonna practice, shut it down, get ready for the regular season.” We went out to practice, and it was like a pass, 37 Buster Solid Protection, like, reverse out, fake to Adrian (Peterson), the running back, the fullback, Rhett Ellison, comes across, blocks the d-end, and as I faked to Adrian, Rhett passed by, and once I put my foot in the ground, everything just snapped.
The entire bottom half of my leg was one way and my foot was another way, and it was just dangling. And, in that moment, it was just like, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah,” just screaming like, “Aaaaaaaaaaah my leg!” And guys were throwing helmets and everything, it was bad. If you were out there, you saw a leg just dangling the way it was. All I could say was, “Man, go get my phone, and text my mom.”
Bridgewater then goes on to describe the interaction in the ambulance with Eric Sugarman, who was the Vikings’ head athletic trainer at the time. Clark also brings up how emotional head coach Mike Zimmer was about what had happened to Bridgewater that day. It’s worth a listen.
So, somehow. . .at least from what Bridgewater believes. . .he was getting ready to go into the season with a torn ACL. As Clark points out in the lead-up to the initial question, it’s pretty much impossible to get anyone to talk about what actually happened that day, but now we know a little bit more about what happened on that day.
The Bridgewater injury altered the direction of the franchise, to put it mildly. The injury led the Vikings to make a trade for Sam Bradford, who made it through 2016 without injury but got hurt in the 2017 opener, giving way to Case Keenum. Keenum led the run to the 2017 NFC Championship Game, and that eventually led to the Kirk Cousins era. How much different would things have been had Bridgewater capitalized on his very good 2016 preseason the way everyone thought he would?
I’ve said in this space before that Teddy Bridgewater’s injury is one of the great “what ifs” in recent Vikings history. Now, we have a little bit more perspective on the injury that set a series of franchise-altering events in motion. The whole video is worth a listen, but the part about his injury is likely going to be the part that most Vikings fans would have the most interest in.