Vikings GM Rick Spielman told reporters on Thursday that while QB Teddy Bridgewater is technically in line to be a free agent, it’s possible that the NFL could take up the issue regarding his contract tolling for the 2018 season.
“Right now, he’s technically ready to become a free agent,” Spielman said, via Judd Zulgad of 1500espn.com. “With the tolling, I know you guys wrote about all that, if it goes into that area, it’s not a Minnesota Viking [decision], that’s an NFL and player union [issue] that will have to decide that area.”
The issue regarding Bridgewater’s contract is that he spent the first six games of the 2018 season on the PUP list and the Collective Bargaining Agreement states that any player who is in the last year of his contract is on the PUP list through the sixth game of the regular season will have his contract toll.
Spielman dancing around the issue at least leaves the door open to the possibility that they could pursue this route along with the NFL’s assistance.
Minnesota is in a position where their top-three quarterbacks could all be free agents in the coming months, so retaining Bridgewater for the 2018 season and re-signing one of Case Keenum or Sam Bradford would go a long way toward settling their quarterback situation.
Bridgewater recently said that he “definitely” views himself as a starting quarterback next year.
“Definitely. No question,” Bridgewater said when asked if he views himself as a starter, per Dane Mizutani.
Bridgewater, 25, 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.
The Vikings declined to pick up Bridgewater’s fifth-year option that would have cost them $12,198,000 million for the 2018 season, but was guaranteed only for injury and wouldn’t have prevented them from working out a long-term extension.
Bridgewater will now be an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his NFL career.
In 2017, Bridgewater appeared in one game for the Vikings and was 0-2 passing and threw an interception.
We have him featured in our Top 100 – 2018 NFL Free Agents list.
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