Denver Broncos: Teddy Bridgewater’s advantages over Drew Lock
1. Bridgewater has played his best football on good teams
This may seem like we’re just stating the obvious, but there’s something to be said for some of the trends with Bridgewater here.
When he was drafted by the Vikings in 2014, they were coming off of a 5-10-1 season. Bridgewater was one of a handful of first-round picks the team had added between 2013 and 2014 and the Vikings were one of the up-and-coming rosters in the league at that point.
When he got his chances to start games, the Vikings played pretty well, going 6-6 in the games Bridgewater started. The following season, in 2015, Bridgewater helped lead the Vikings to an 11-5 record and a playoff appearance against the reigning NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks.
Not only was a missed field goal the only thing preventing the Vikings from a postseason win that year, but Bridgewater was a Von Miller strip sack away from potentially leading the Vikings to a win in Denver during their championship season.
When he was with the New Orleans Saints, Bridgewater went 5-1 as the starting quarterback and obviously parlayed that into a big-money deal with the Carolina Panthers.
It’s no coincidence that, on a rebuilding roster in Carolina, Bridgewater played arguably the worst he has in his career up to this point. Completing 69.1 percent of his passes, that is pretty relative, but his touchdown percentage was down, his interception percentage was up, and his QB rating was slightly down.
To use a basketball analogy, if Drew Lock is a shooting guard who prefers the three-point shot, Teddy Bridgewater is a ball-distributing point guard who is just as happy with an assist as he is a layup.
When you put the point guard type onto a roster that is young, going through massive changes on both sides of the ball in terms of personnel and coaching, it’s not entirely surprising that Bridgewater struggled some a season ago.
It’s also not surprising that a player of his playstyle excelled on the 2019 New Orleans Saints or the 2015 Vikings, very good all-around rosters with playmakers and strong defenses.
The 2021 Denver Broncos are much more in line with the 2015 Vikings/2019 Saints compared to the 2020 Carolina Panthers in terms of their all-around roster construction, which bodes well for Teddy given his history of playing well in those kinds of surroundings.