Broncos roster: Quarterback position preview for 2021 season
Teddy Bridgewater
Teddy Bridgewater has been a player of interest for Denver Broncos fans for quite some time. He was finally added to the Broncos roster the day before round one of the 2021 NFL Draft, but the Broncos made the Carolina Panthers pay (literally) in order to give them a draft pick.
Bridgewater’s re-worked salary is one of the top indicators that he’s not going to be handed anything upon arriving in Denver.
With that being said, Bridgewater has proven in his NFL career that he can play a true “point guard” kind of role at the quarterback position on a good roster and the team will have success. Look no further than his first couple of years starting for the Minnesota Vikings and his time with the New Orleans Saints as evidence.
After signing a big-money deal with the Carolina Panthers in 2020, the idea that Bridgewater is a “raise all boats” kind of guy at the quarterback position took a pretty hefty shot.
He had the same kind of weird offseason hurdles to jump as Drew Lock with a new coaching staff, new teammates, injuries all over the place, and more.
Even with pretty vastly different sample sizes so far, Drew Lock has been a 3.8 touchdown percentage player and Bridgewater is at 3.4 percent for his career. In terms of interception percentage, Bridgewater is at 2.3 percent while Lock is at 3.0 percent.
Bridgewater is known for completing a high percentage of passes (66.5 percent in 59 career games) while Lock is dinged for inaccuracy (59.1 percent in 18 games).
All of those factors add up to what the Denver Broncos likely believe they have done in adding Bridgewater — raising the floor of the QB position.
The dropoff from Drew Lock to Jeff Driskel and Brett Rypien in 2020 was pretty staggering, even considering Lock’s own struggles.
The dropoff from Lock to Bridgewater? Well, it might not even be a dropoff, all things considered.
If Bridgewater shows the coaching staff that he can simply make better decisions with the ball consistently and make accurate throws more consistently, he’s probably going to take Drew Lock’s job. The Denver Broncos can’t afford to lead the league in turnovers again and they can’t afford such drastic inconsistency on offense with three-and-outs and untimely mistakes.
Although Bridgwater may be unspectacular, he has a track record of playing really well with a good roster around him (go figure), so he’s in a pretty good spot here.