The New Orleans Saints struggled to find a successor in the aftermath of the retirement of NFL legend Drew Brees, and now they’re betting on Derek Carr being their true quarterback of the future. But that does not mean there are not some viable backups who have come through the team since.
One of those is Teddy Bridgewater, whose performance to this point has shown he’ll never be a consistently solid starter in the league who can stand amongst the best, but he’s certainly not a bad signal-caller to have in the fold. There isn’t room for Bridgewater on New Orleans’ depth chart, but he’s made enough starts in recent years to warrant more attention around the league — playing 15 games for the Carolina Panthers, 14 with the Denver Broncos, and five with the Miami Dolphins.
Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay identified Bridgewater as the best remaining free agent quarterback. Here’s what they wrote of Bridgewater’s status as teams approach training camp:
“A concussion and hand injury cost him time and led to rookie Thompson becoming Miami’s QB1 when Tagovailoa was out of the lineup. Regardless, Bridgewater showed he’s still a capable game-manager when healthy following a middling 2021 campaign with the Denver Broncos in which he went 7-7 as a starter.
Bridgewater may not be taking his team to a Super Bowl, but he could hold the line if called upon as a second-stringer.
It’s surprising that he’s looking for a new deal right now, especially given the clear lack of proven signal-callers on the open market—Carson Wentz and Matt Ryan are some of the only other options and both fared far worse than Bridgewater in recent seasons—and the relatively cheap contract he would likely command.”
Odds are Bridgewater will catch on somewhere, even if he’s a little overqualified to be a team’s third quarterback. We’ll have to wait and see if he suits up against his old Saints team in the fall.
