Teddy Bridgewater says he ‘probably’ shouldn’t have come back after Week 10 injury

The Panthers had to hit the reset button at quarterback this year after the Teddy Bridgewater experiment failed. So, they’ll enter the 2021 season with Sam Darnold as their QB1 instead. Hopefully things go better for him than they did for Teddy, now competing with Drew Lock to start for the Broncos.

While Bridgewater flashed in the early and middle parts of the season, his game took a hard dive after the close Week 9 loss to the Chiefs. Apparently, he suffered a knee injury in the next game against the Buccaneers. Yesterday, Bridgewater told Denver media he probably shouldn’t have come back after that one.

Teddy Bridgewater noted today that he “probably” shouldn’t have come back after hurting his knee at TB last year.

In the 16 starts before he hurt his knee (including starts in New Orleans), he had a 99.2 rating, a TD-INT ratio of 23-10 a completion percentage of 71.0%.

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) June 15, 2021

It’s unclear exactly when Bridgewater’s injury occurred, but it was obvious that something was off for the rest of the season. The team shut him down for the Week 11 matchup with the Lions – a shutout “win” for backup P.J. Walker. Teddy returned to the lineup the next week against the Vikings and continued to start the rest of the year despite a string of poor performances.

The thing is, professional athletes will almost always try to play through injuries. It’s ultimately on the coaching staff to know when to tell them no. Bridgewater made plenty of mistakes on the field in 2020, but forcing him to play hurt falls on Matt Rhule’s shoulders.

If Darnold winds up getting injured, hopefully it gets managed better than Bridgewater’s knee or Cam Newton’s shoulder/foot were.