Zimmer addressed the team in full and was clearly upset for Bridgewater, a player he quickly bonded with after he was drafted in the first round in 2014. But the only element of the quarterback’s anatomy that Mike Zimmer brought up in his first public comments about Bridgewater was his heart.
Advertisement
The craziest thing about the entire situation is that Bridgewater’s nightmarish injury occurred on a non-contact play. “This guy has something about him”.
“I can go down the line”, Zimmer said, “and I’ll take them with me into an alley anywhere”.
Kelly said Tuesday that Kaepernick will play in the team’s final exhibition game Thursday night in San Diego after missing the first two preseason games with a exhausted shoulder. “I don”t know what”s going to happen.”. “He always has that something about him that draws you to him”. There are great players and great leaders in our locker room who are going to fight to the end to reach the goals we set for 2016.
And while Zimmer tried on multiple occasions to leave the door open in case test results on Bridgewater’s knee came back better than expected, the straight-talking coach couldn’t hide the fact that the organization was bracing for the worst.
Kyle Rudolph, Adrian Peterson, Captain Munnerlyn, Alex Boone and a couple other players went in to try and cheer their teammate up but, much to their surprise, he was already in high spirits. While he won’t be in the huddle, Boone has no doubts that Bridgewater will lead from the sidelines. “Everybody else is kind of wired differently, and he’s got to be the real calm one”. “We’re going to figure out a way”.
And just like that, on a non-contact play in a ho-hum practice two days before the fourth preseason game, Bridgewater is done and the Vikings turn to 36-year-old Shaun Hill, a 15-year veteran who is 16-18 as an National Football League starter. The ACL and knee were likely close to failing at anytime, and it just so happened that it was a non-contact injury, but what if it would have been a contact play, or worse yet, held on until the first time he was sacked in a game, maybe on September 11? “We’re going to keep fighting”. “That statement that he wrote tonight, that was all Teddy and he hand-wrote it; that’s the kind of kid he is”.
The Miami native is out for the season, nfl.com reported. He sat last season with a back injury. The team said an MRI revealed a dislocated knee, tears to the ACL and other structural damage.
For his part, Bridgewater seems as upbeat as can be, all things considered. They’d bought into him, and they were going to miss him.
Advertisement
“He still had that Teddy-B smile”, Munnerlyn said. “It let me know anything is possible”.
