Teddy Bridgewater Makes Honest Admission About 2020 Season With Panthers

Teddy Bridgewater entered the 2020 season with the Carolina Panthers with fairly high expectations. The former first-round pick looked very solid filling in for Drew Brees with the New Orleans Saints the year before.

Things looked decent for part of the season, but the team lost superstar running back Christian McCaffrey early on. In the back half of the season, the relatively low ceiling for a Bridgewater-led Panthers offense became pretty apparent.

He cites the second game against the eventual Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a turning point for the worst in 2020. He says that he “took a shot” that probably should have led him to shutting things down for the remainder of the season, with Carolina out of contention. Instead, he gritted things out.

“I think once we played Tampa that second game, and I took a shot, I probably should have just shut it down for the rest of the season,” he told Denver Broncos media on Tuesday, per the Charlotte Observer. “But I just love this game and I never take it for granted. So, right now I’m just at that point where I feel really good mentally, spiritually, physically. Every day I come here, I got a smile on my face.”

“I think for like the first eight weeks, the first seven weeks of the season, I think I was playing some really good football,” Bridgewater said. “We had guys who were having career years.”

Through the first nine games of the year, before that second loss to the Bucs, Bridgewater was completing 71.9-percent of his throws for 2,416 yards, 11 touchdowns, and six interceptions. He was at a solid 268.4 yards per game, and an above average 7.9 per attempt.

In the final six games, his completion rate dropped to 64.5-percent, he threw for 1,317 yards—just 219.5 per game—four touchdowns, and five interception. His yards per attempt plummeted to 7.08.

Teddy Bridgewater isn’t an elite NFL quarterback, but he may be a solid starter when healthy, with a good supporting cast. We’ll see if he can beat out a young QB with his back against the wall, Drew Lock, for the Broncos starting job this year.

[Charlotte Observer]

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