VikingLord wrote:For me it's harder to put numbers on it and easier to put it into the context of what I'll be looking for him to improve upon. The big one that jumps out is his deep ball accuracy and touch. He missed a couple of TDs just due to his penchant to overthrow deep receivers, which was a knock on him coming out of college. Looking at Bridgewater one would not expect that to be a problem for him, but either he's outstanding at anticipating deep routes coming open and just pulls the trigger a tad too soon, or he really does possess a surprisingly strong arm. Either way, if he can do a better job on the deep ball, I could see him tacking on another 5-6 scores over the year just based on that alone. Adding Wallace should help him as Wallace is tough for even NFL QBs to overthrow. Maybe if Patterson can get on the same page we'll see improvement there as well. But that's probably the single thing I would like to see him improve.
Another area he can improve on is mechanics. Bridgewater's mechanics are generally very good, but he seems to get the yips sometimes and some balls come out that just don't look right. Teddy is very accurate generally, so not sure what causes these particular passes to be so errant, especially when a sizeable number of them appear to be fairly simple completions. Like I said, this is a very minor overall criticism, and I realize nobody is perfect, especially when under pressure, but these do stand out largely because Bridgewater is so consistent.
Maybe one other area of improvement I would like to see is more aggressiveness in throwing into the end zone, especially when the Vikings are down inside the 20. This was a problem for Ponder too, and it might be a result of coaching/how productive Asiata was in those situations, but I think Bridgewater could pump up his TDs by another 5-6 if he were a bit more aggressive inside the red zone. With guys like Rudolph and Patterson, there should be some favorable matchups.
If all goes well and Bridgewater is able to do the above while staying healthy, I could see him at around 30 TDs to 12 INTs for the year and between 3,500-4,000 yards. YPA should be somewhere in the 7-8 range, but it could go above 8 if Turner decides to go more vertical. He certainly has the speed at WR now to do that.
Wow, several people have now expressed the hope that Bridgewater will throw 30+ TDs and while I understand that it's a
hope, not a prediction or expectation, it strikes me as a very high hope. It's pretty rare for a QB to throw that many TDs in his second pro season. Who was the last QB to do it? Culpepper? Maybe Carson Palmer? Stafford didn't hit that height in season 2, did he?
I think Bridgewater's going to have a hard time topping 25 TDs in season 2 and I hope he gets that many. Regarding his deep ball: part of the problem could just be lack of experience/chemistry with his receivers. I imagine it takes time to get a feel for how quickly they'll get to a spot far down the field.
I'd like to see a little more patience for Bridgewater in season 2. I thought he was often a little eager to take the check down and could have let plays develop a bit more. Of course, he had good reason to want the ball out of his hand quickly, since the pass protection was often lousy last season. Maybe if that improves, he'll feel a little more comfortable letting routes develop.
I'm also hoping to see his accuracy improve. It was problematic at times last year.
Lets see...
