For a guy who’s going to be a backup quarterback this weekend, Teddy Bridgewater is pretty excited.
And that’s only because of what he’s been through the last 15 months, as he came back from a knee injury some thought was career-ending.
“Once I get out there between those lines, I have no regrets, no doubt,” Bridgewater said, via Andrew Krammer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I’m just out there living my dream. There was a time where the dream may have ended or died, but the dream is still alive.”
Bridgewater is physically recovered and upbeat, after going through an arduous rehab. But he also applied the same kind of process-driven approach to his gratitude for the support he got, saying he took three months to reply to the more than 800 text messages of support he received after his preseason knee injury last summer.
“I made it my business to respond to every text message,” he said.
Now, he can tell everyone he’s back. The Vikings are going to continue to start Case Keenum for the moment, since there’s the small matter of Bridgewater getting up to speed with the offense since he hasn’t had a preseason or even very long practicing. He’s still wearing a brace on his left knee, but said he had “no concerns at all” about his physical status.
“Our training staff, our strength and conditioning staff has done a great job preparing me to get to this point,” Bridgewater said. “So once I get out there, it’s no regrets. No holding back. Whatever is meant to happen, happens. I trust God’s plan for me. I’m going to go with that.”
It will be curious to see how long the Vikings wait before going back to the former first-rounder, but his comeback at least stands as a flicker of light for the league as a whole, at a time when so many high-profile stars have gone down with injuries.