Sam Bradford, the former No1 overall draft choice and now the Minnesota Vikings’ starting quarterback for the indefinite future, has hit the restart button on his NFL career for the second time in 12 months. His first return did not go badly, either.
It really was only last September that Bradford played his first game for the Philadelphia Eagles. The Monday night game at Atlanta – 14 September 2015 – was Bradford’s first NFL action in nearly 23 months. Not surprisingly, he was rusty at first, with 117 passing yards and an interception in the first half, but he finished strong, becoming a bright spot in a tough Eagles’ loss.
“After a dismal opening 30 minutes, after throwing pass after pass that was a millisecond too late or a centimeter too high, after what could have been a crushing interception not long before halftime, Bradford was brilliant,” Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski wrote that night from the Georgia Dome.
Bradford, who won the 2008 Heisman Trophy, would have a decent 2015 season, establishing career bests by throwing for 3,725 yards and completing 65% of his passes. But the Eagles missed the playoffs and coach Chip Kelly was fired. The team traded five draft picks to Cleveland so they could select Carson Wentz, the quarterback from North Dakota State.
Though the Eagles planned to continue starting Bradford while Wentz learned more about playing in the NFL, Bradford became expendable on 31 August, when Minnesota quarterback Teddy Bridgewater went down in a non-contact practice drill with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, knocking him out for the season and forcing the Vikings to scramble.
Three days later, the Vikings acquired Bradford from the Eagles for two draft picks. As Wentz made his bosses look good by beating Cleveland in the first week of the season, Bradford watched the veteran backup Shaun Hill, aided by two defensive touchdowns, lead Minnesota past Tennessee. Bradford got his first start for the Vikings a week later.
Bradford was spectacular this past Sunday, completing 22 of 31 passes for 286 yards and two touchdowns in a 17-14 victory over Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. It was the first game at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, built at the site of the former Metrodome. Bradford excelled as the Vikings’ running game scuffled, with Adrian Peterson leaving with a knee injury.
“When you’ve been in a system for a while, there’s a lot more focus on what the defense is trying to do, how they’re going to try to stop us,” Bradford said at a postgame news conference. “This week, there was still a lot of focus on what the defense was doing, but there also was a lot of talk about what we were doing. I’m still in a phase where I have to translate things to what they were in a previous offense. That’s how my brain functions. The longer you’re in an offense, the smaller that translation becomes from week to week.”
So Bradford should face a shorter learning curve this week, as the Vikings prepare to face the Carolina Panthers (1-1) on the road Sunday. But Peterson is out indefinitely, and Bradford is only 26-37-1 as a starter and is hardly the sturdiest quarterback in NFL history. He missed 33 of 96 regular-season games in his first six seasons because of injury.
In his two pro seasons, Bridgewater was as effective as Bradford has been in his career, but Bridgewater is somewhat more mobile. The Vikings won, too. He took them to an 11-5 season last year in his first full season as a starter, and the Vikings lost a playoff game to Seattle. Bradford, stuck with the lousy Rams for four years, has never been in the playoffs.
Bridgewater is also a better value: he is in the third year of a four-year, $6.9m contract; Bradford signed a two-year contract extension worth $36m, $26m of it guaranteed, in March with the Eagles, who strictly regarded him as a stopgap. With two victories, no interceptions and a 94.1 passer rating, Wentz is more ready than they thought.
Bradford started his career quickly. After a 19-6 victory over Arizona on 5 December 2010, his rookie season, the Rams were 6-4, and the Oklahoman, Bradford’s hometown newspaper, ran a story about him headlined ‘Ending the Heisman Jinx’ too early. The Rams lost three of their last four games. He sprained his ankle and was 1-9 in 10 starts in 2011.
The Rams actually pondered selecting Robert Griffin III, from Baylor, in the 2012 draft, but decided to stick with Bradford. He played a full season, and St Louis finished 7-8-1, but he tore his left ACL in the seventh game of the 2013 season, then reinjured his knee, ending his 2014 season before even one game.
When the Eagles traded quarterback Nick Foles for Bradford, the fans in Philadelphia expected the new QB to fall apart. Bradford missed two games with a separated shoulder and a concussion, and the Eagles lost two of their last three games to fall from playoff contention. By beating the Giants in their finale, the Eagles only avoided a game in London in 2016.
After the Eagles acquired the No2 overall draft pick from Cleveland in April and prepared to take a quarterback, Bradford asked the Eagles to trade him. The Eagles thought he would be their opening-day starter, but Bridgewater crumpled and Minnesota was willing to offer a first-round draft choice, among others. Wentz’s time had come in Philadelphia.
The Vikings’ tight end coach is Pat Shurmur, who was Bradford’s offensive coordinator in St Louis and Philadelphia. Hill started the 2014 season as Bradford’s backup with the Rams, and, following Sunday’s victory, Bradford gave credit to Hill for helping him learn the Vikings offense more efficiently, often using the Rams’ old terminology.
The trade certainly has revitalized Bradford’s career, and Minnesota’s offensive coordinator is none other than the guru Norval Eugene Turner. But Bradford has played only one game. Granted, it was against Green Bay, but wait a few weeks before making any pronouncements. Something always seems to happen to Sam Bradford.
