03-14-2018, 12:24 PM
Quote: @BlackMagic7 said:So true, re declining the 5th year for Bridgewater. As soon as that happened, I think he also soured on the Vikings.
Imagine Kirk's stats on Teddy. He would have been franchise tagged so fast it'd be called a discount for the team.
You know... I think the writing was on the wall the whole time with Teddy. Look at the money these starters are getting lately, and look at the value of the 5th year option we declined on Teddy. We passed on a hefty discount the day we declined it. (... did we decline the option thinking about "toll" rules?...) Had he played this season, and played like Keenum... would we have paid $20+ million? Man... i dunno... we didnt even pay that to Keenum...
Maybe it was more obvious he was out the door from an overall league contract standpoint than I had realized... maybe back last offseason when we were wondering if we'd be paying Bradford, the Vikes were wondering if they'd be paying Cousins lol...
It will be really interesting to see the terms of his contract with the Jets. If it's a very low number, I think most of the league believes his knee is highly doubtful, which the Vikings may have known all along. We may never know, but Vikings management may have determined Bridgewater's injury was career-ending as soon as it happened, which is why they traded for Bradford immediately. Many teams have lost their starting QB to injury early and essentially declared a "mulligan" - play for draft position. If they thought Bridgewater was coming back, the Vikings could have stuck with Sean Hill and no one would have lost their jobs over a bad 2016.