According to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, Vikings QB Teddy Bridgewater continues to make “major strides” in his return from a devastating knee injury and is on track to begin practicing next week.
La Canfora says that Bridgewater is slated to come off of the PUP list following Week 6’s game and return to the practice field.
While this is clearly good news, La Canfora points out that Bridgewater will still require “significant” practice time in order to round himself back into game shape. Sources have told La Canfora that Bridgewater has received clearance from doctors each step of the way and there have been no recent setbacks in his recovery.
Once the Vikings activate Bridgewater from the PUP list, a three-week window opens for them to place him on their active roster or he would stay on the PUP list for the entire season. According to La Canfora, the Vikings plan to have Bridgewater in the quarterback mix for the second half of the season.
Sam Bradford has already missed a few games with a knee injury, so it can’t hurt to have Bridgewater working his way back for the second half of the season.
Bridgewater is in the final year of his contract and could be an unrestricted free agent in 2018, depending on whether he’s able to play or not at some point during 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.
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 on a long-term extension over the next year.
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.
We’ll have more regarding Bridgewater as the news is available.
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