I think there are similarities. For instance, both are rather good at extending drives with their feet. And as you mention, both I think check down a little too quickly. Where I see differences is mainly in poise. Bridgewater tends to stand tall in the pocket and is quite good in crunch time. His numbers also reflect that he's rather good when pressured. Ponder was always rather skittish and while he did have some comebacks, I don't feel he's as good when the game is on the line (although I'm going purely by memory).Mothman wrote:To me, the parallels are very clear and eerily familiar. I don't think Ponder was flushed from the pocket that often without being pressured either. Like Bridgewater, he often faced too much pressure. It made it hard to accurately evaluate his game and it led to the development of some bad habits. He didn't step up into the pocket as often as you'd like but Teddy is developing a similar habit of rolling away from pressure instead of stepping up and likely for the same reason: when the pocket keeps collapsing in front of a QB, eventually he starts losing confidence that he can step up and he uses his feet.
Ponder looked off defenders at times and stared down receivers at times. He was inconsistent about it and I see that inconsistency in Bridgewater too, although not to the same degree.
Both QBs had/have a tendency to settle too easily for the check down. Again, some of that might be a product of pressure.
I think they have much more in common than most people want to admit. There are certainly similarities between between their second seasons that are difficult to ignore.
The thing that irked me the most about Ponder is a lot of his interceptions were on the same play. The guy could flat out not throw an out route and constantly got that route jumped by defenders. Even this year, Waynes jumped an out route he threw. He just continually struggled with that throw.
For Bridgewater, it's clearly the long ball that is his Achilles heel. He's flat out missed some wide open receivers (usually Wallace). Even the Diggs TD, while it was a spectacular catch, it really didn't need to be if the ball was placed better.
Basically, I do see similarities in that they're both young and inexperienced (if looking at the same timeframe in development). TB seems to have more of the intangibles that are difficult to teach, which is why I'm more optimistic on him than Ponder. Both have mechanics issues, TB's hopefully can be corrected.