Dr. Joe Greene has treated athletes with ACL injuries and he says former Louisville Cardinal Teddy Bridgewater has a long road ahead of him after tearing his ACL and dislocating his knee during the Minnesota Vikings practice on Tuesday.
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Bridgewater dropped back to pass during a drill, planted his foot and immediately went down. The team had released Brad Sorensen on Tuesday before Bridgewater was injured early in their practice; the Vikings resigned Sorensen on Wednesday after putting Bridgewater on IR. The organization confirmed that he did tear his ACL and dislocated his knee. The knee was placed in an air cast before he was taken to a nearby hospital.
The initial diagnosis was a dislocation of the knee and a complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament, plus other significant damage that the Vikings have not disclosed, and the likelihood of it occurring was pegged at less than 1 percent. The Vikings announced “there appears to be no nerve or arterial damage”. Bridgewater will be scheduled for surgery within the next few days.
“I want to thank the Wilf family and the entire Vikings organization, all of my teammates, friends, Eric Sugarman and the fantastic Vikings athletic training staff and the fans who have sent me messages and wished me well”, his statement said.
But there will be football, it starts tomorrow and in the Land of 10,000 Lakes there still is a chance at a team having a very good season.
“Teddy’s such a great kid”, Zimmer said. “We’re going to grieve today and be upset about it”.
We’re not going to stick our heads in the sand. If Bridgewater misses an extended period of time, Minnesota will need to rely on either veteran Shaun Hill or Joel Stave, a rookie out of Wisconsin.
Losing Bridgewater would be a huge blow for Minnesota, which went 11-5 and won the NFC North last season with him starting all 16 games, and looked to be the division favorite against this year.
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Zimmer said he has already had preliminary discussions with general manager Rick Spielman about adding another quarterback if necessary, but the injury also likely puts even more emphasis on Adrian Peterson and the running game.
