Flash back to a sunny afternoon in Eden Prairie, four years ago at the end of August, and pretend it all had gone differently.
Pretend Teddy Bridgewater's left knee had held firm as he dropped back to pass early in the Vikings' final preseason practice. Pretend he'd gone into his third season healthy and led the Vikings out of the tunnel for the Sunday night opener against the Packers at the new U.S. Bank Stadium.
Would Bridgewater have stayed healthy to lead a team that started the 2016 season with five consecutive victories? Would he have taken the 2017 Vikings on a ride to the NFC Championship Game? Would he still be here now, firmly entrenched as the starter in the middle of his second contract?
Or would his knee, as some who studied Bridgewater believe, have eventually collapsed at a later date?
It's all the stuff of conjecture now, as the quarterback with whom coach Mike Zimmer thought he'd spend the rest of his career returns to Minnesota as an opponent for the first time, trying to help the Panthers keep their faint playoff hopes alive while dealing a body blow to the Vikings' own chances.
Carolina is Bridgewater's third team since he left Minnesota after the 2017 season, and the first for whom he's been named the starter since he tore multiple ligaments and dislocated his left knee Aug. 30, 2016, in what still ranks as one of the more gruesome and bizarre injuries in recent pro football history.
But even as Bridgewater has gone from franchise fixture to what-could-have-been story, the impression he made on the Vikings seems to transcend all of it.
"I'm pretty certain in making this statement: In the 10 years I've been here, he has to be the most likable player that we've had in the locker room," tight end Kyle Rudolph said. "I mean, you just talk to people in the front office, coaching staff, players that played with him, workers in the cafeteria: Everyone loved Teddy. You loved his energy and positivity that he brought every day, his work ethic that he brought every day."
There are about a dozen players left in the organization from Bridgewater's time in Minnesota; nearly all of them have a Teddy story.
For Dalvin Cook, whose locker was next to Bridgewater's in a corner of the Vikings' old Winter Park facility that Bridgewater dubbed "The Neighborhood," the quarterback was first a friendly face who understood what it was like to make Minnesota home after growing up in a rough part of Miami. Their relationship shifted from the locker room to the training room in Oct. 2017, when Cook began his rehab from knee surgery just as Bridgewater was finishing his.
"I had some tough days in the training room with Teddy," Cook said. "He would just tell me to push through, you've got to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It just used to be little things that he would pitch at me and throw at me to get me through it. I could be going through some pain in the training room trying to get my extension back, trying to get my range of motion back, and he'd make me laugh through it."
Bridgewater's last trip between the white lines at U.S. Bank Stadium, for mop-up duty at the end of a Week 15 game in 2017, triggered an ovation louder than anything Cook said he's heard in the building other than the "Minneapolis Miracle." Bridgewater's return as an opponent this weekend will come with the stands empty and the fans who still hold warm memories of him unable to let him know how they feel.
The NFL machine marches on, through career-threatening injuries and life-altering pandemics. The true impact of Bridgewater's 45 months with the Vikings might be measured in the manner they've continued to reverberate.
"When you think about it, in this profession, there's so much of a business feel to it, where it's guys' jobs, as opposed to college, where you're on top of each other, teammates, around the dorms playing video games," Bridgewater said. "That's all you know for 24 hours out of the day. And then you get to the NFL, you have guys who have families and have to provide for their families. So it does get tougher to establish those relationships. But as you go throughout the years, you latch onto guys who are genuine, guys who appreciate you as much as you appreciate them, guys who have the same common goals in life as you. You tend to grow, as a person, as a friend, as a teammate with those guys."
