One former member of the New Orleans Saints received good news this week: Teddy Bridgewater, the new Denver Broncos starting quarterback for the 2021 season. Bridgewater was acquired by Denver in an offseason trade with the Carolina Panthers and put into a competition with former Broncos second-round pick Drew Lock, which he won. His focus now lies in preparing to face the New York Giants on the road to open Denver’s regular season on Sept. 12.
Bridgewater remains one of the easiest guys to root for in the NFL, and it’s great to see him continuing to find success away from New Orleans. He was announced as the Broncos’ starter days after a 30-3 preseason victory over the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field, where he won his first start with the Saints back in 2019 (which kicked off a five-game winning streak). Saints fans interested in seeing how he performs with Denver can catch his first nationally-broadcast game on Thursday, Oct. 21 against the Cleveland Browns on NFL Network.
Still, it’s been a rocky road for him to get here. Bridgewater won the Panthers’ starting gig last season after signing with them as a free agent (returning a compensatory draft pick to the Saints, which they packaged in a trade to go get cornerback Paulson Adebo) but they impatiently hurried to trade for Jets draft bust Sam Darnold, shipping Bridgewater out on the way. He posted career-bests in passing yards (3,733) and completion percentage (69.1%) while connecting on 15 touchdowns against 11 interceptions, but the Panthers must believe Darnold can improve on his 9 scores-to-11 giveaways ratio with the Jets last season.
Anyway: despite all this upheaval — remember, Bridgewater first arrived in New Orleans when New York unloaded him to open the job for Darnold, which followed a career-threatening knee injury with the Minnesota Vikings — he’s remained upbeat and optimistic, and now he gives the Broncos their best chance to compete against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the tough AFC West. Let’s see how far he can take them.
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