Teddy Bridgewater doesn't plan on the Carolina Panthers tanking in 2020.
The team's new starting quarterback did a video teleconference call with about 40 media members Thursday, and during the call I asked him how he would describe himself as a QB.
"I'm a winner," Bridgewater said. "Everywhere I've gone, I've won, and I take pride in that. ... I don't have to go into details about my playing (style) or things like that. I'm just going to tell you, right now, that I'm a winner."
And he has been. Bridgewater is 22-12 in NFL regular-season games he has started, a winning percentage of 64.7.
Cam Newton, by comparison, won 55.2% of the time as Carolina's starter before the team released him Tuesday. Jake Delhomme was at 58.9% while with the Panthers.
But this year will be Bridgewater's biggest professional challenge to his "I'm a winner" mantra. This Carolina team isn't built to win the way the Saints and Vikings were. Not yet. Not now. It has no Newton, no Luke Kuechly, no Greg Olsen, no Eric Reid, no Gerald McCoy, no Mario Addison and no Trai Turner. This is a team in full reboot, and also one that also lost its last eight games in 2019.
But Bridgewater is in no mood to wait. He's finally got his own starting job again, almost four years after a horrific knee injury wrecked two years of his career in Minnesota and consigned him to backup duty for two more years in New Orleans.
Carolina signed Bridgewater to a three-year contract worth a reported $63 million to replace Newton and start winning ASAP. If Bridgewater does, he might get a second big contract with Carolina in 2023. If he doesn't _ or if he gets injured or beaten out by a younger player _ the monetary penalty for replacing him after two seasons isn't severe.
Bridgewater, 27, made a good first impression Thursday during the video call. He sounded more like Drew Brees than Newton, which makes sense because Bridgewater has been hanging around Brees for most of the past two years. Bridgewater said he was "always cool, always calm" and that he was a more accomplished QB now than he was when he made the Pro Bowl with Minnesota as a second-year pro in 2015.
Said Bridgewater: "I actually feel like I am better than what I was a couple of years ago ... I'm not a young rookie starting, trying to tell grown men what to do. I understand what it takes to be a quarterback in this league."
In an NFC South division with Brees, Tom Brady and Matt Ryan, Bridgewater will need that confidence. The former Louisville star has the shortest list of accomplishments among the division's starting QB quartet, and he's going to need to get the Panthers to score around 30 points every game given that suspect defense.
He will have weapons, though. Christian McCaffrey is the NFL's best running back, and new signee Robby Anderson will team with DJ Moore to give Carolina a sturdy pair of starting receivers. I worry a lot about that defense, with holes at every level, but that's not really Bridgewater's concern. He will have enough to do trying to channel Joe Brady's offense _ the duo's familiarity from their New Orleans days will be a plus.
Bridgewater isn't going to win 64.7% of his games this season. That number is inevitably going down. If he can win 50% in 2020 _ if the Panthers go 8-8 _ that would be an enormous success given these circumstances.
But Bridgewater said all the right things Tuesday. He's stranded in his South Florida home, working out with his own weights and running up and down his three flights of stairs while waiting out the coronavirus like everyone else. And he said when he finally gets to come to Charlotte, whether that's in weeks or months, he'll be ready.
"I'll stay within my character," Bridgewater said. "I won't be something that I'm not ... I don't have to come in and pretend to be best friends with everyone. Eventually, those relationships will form, but right now it's about getting better and developing that chemistry on the field and the chemistry off the field will follow. ... I don't wake up with the mindset of losing, tanking, anything like that. I take pride in winning. Winning feels good. And that's how I roll."
