Vikings Decline QB Teddy Bridgewater’s Fifth-Year Option

The Minnesota Vikings have declined to exercise QB Teddy Bridgewater’s fifth-year option, according to Tom Pelissero.

Pelissero mentions that there has been no setback in regards to Bridgewater’s return from a serious knee injury, but they just can’t pick it up with the injury guarantee.

In regards to Bridgewater’s return, Pelissero says that he’s making progress and doing some conditioning with the Vikings. However, the most likely scenario remains that he’ll open the season the physically unable to perform list before being reevaluated in October.

The fifth-year option would have cost the Vikings $12,198,000 million for the 2018 season, according to Joel Corry, but was guaranteed only for injury and wouldn’t have prevented them from working on a long-term extension over the next year.

Bridgewater, unfortunately, suffered a very serious knee injury right before the start of the 2016 season and subsequently spent the entire year on injured reserve.

The Vikings elected to trade for Sam Bradford shortly after Bridgewater suffered his knee injury, and they clearly plan to have Bradford under center for the 2017 season.

Bridgewater, 24, is a former first-round pick of the Vikings back in 2014. He’s currently in the final year of his four-year, $6,849,502 rookie contract and stands to make a base salary of $1,354,023 for the 2017 season.

In 2015, Bridgewater appeared in all 16 games for the Vikings and threw for 3,231 yards while completing 65.3 percent of his passes to go along with 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions.