Is Teddy Bridgewater an impact quarterback now? - Bridgewater's checkdown-heavy approached has been replaced by deep balls. Will it last?

Teddy Bridgewater has always been a good quarterback. He’s never been a gunslinger.

The well-traveled passer has been more of a low-risk option than the field-stretching threats who’ve defined the rise of vertical offenses the past decade. While players like Patrick Mahomes and Matthew Stafford were lobbing grenades, Bridgewater was mostly content to take a few soft pistol shots to open receivers near the line of scrimmage.

After all, Bridgewater came into 2021 with a career high of 15 passing touchdowns. He was the guy the Saints could rely on to execute Drew Brees’ soft-toss playbook to a T in 2019. He was, in lazy terminology, a game manager.

He’s done much more than just manage games in Denver’s 2-0 start. He’s thrown the ball like a top 10 quarterback capable of taking advantage of the Broncos’ rising young receiving corps.

Bridgewater’s hot start is a function of throwing more deep and intermediate-range balls

Bridgewater has been outstanding to begin the 2021 season. Through two games he ranks among the top 10 NFL quarterbacks in passing yards, passing touchdowns, passer rating, completion rate, and yards per attempt. His Broncos are 2-0 and likely very happy to have traded a sixth-round pick for his services.

If Bridgewater can keep even 75 percent of this pace over the next 15 games, he’d set new career highs in most passing statistics. This would be wild for almost any quarterback, let alone a 29-year-old whose career nearly ended due to a catastrophic knee injury in 2016 before slowly building momentum the last five years.

Is there any chance it can last? It’s way too early to plant a flag, but there are encouraging numbers tucked inside his season-opening burst.

Let’s start with the big change that’s revived his passing game; Denver Bronco Teddy Bridgewater wants his receivers to go long.

While he won’t be confused with Mahomes or prime Aaron Rodgers, Bridgewater has risen up the ranks based on a newfound penchant for tough throws downfield. Here’s a chart of his average air yards — the distance his typical target lands beyond the line of scrimmage — over the past four seasons:

He’s throwing the ball, on average, 41 percent further than he did as a Panther and 64 percent further than he did in two years backing up Brees. Per SIS, Bridgewater threw 140 passes 10+ yards downfield last year in 15 games with Carolina (9.3 per game). He’d thrown 43 in six games as the Saints primary quarterback in 2019 (7.2). This year he’s averaged 11 such throws each Sunday.

His efficiency no longer relies on big runs after the catch. And, more importantly, he’s been excellent when it comes to making these throws. His on-target throw rate is up to 85.5 percent, fourth-best in the league and tops among players whose average throw travels at least nine yards downfield. He’s completed 13 of 22 passes that traveled at least 10 yards downfield. His numbers would be even better if KJ Hamler didn’t do, uh, this:

Denver’s rising young receiving corps has played a role, but it isn’t like Bridgewater didn’t have solid targets at his last two stops. The Saints flanked him with Michael Thomas and Jared Cook. The Panthers had two 1,000-yard wideouts in DJ Moore and Robby Anderson. Bridgewater is doing this with Courtland Sutton, a few quarters of Jerry Jeudy, Hamler, Tim Patrick and Noah Fant. What’s the difference?

For one, Bridgewater has moved into an offense where running backs don’t play an outsized role in the passing game. New Orleans had Alvin Kamara. Carolina had Christian McCaffrey and then Mike Davis, who averaged 5.6 targets between them in 2020.

The Broncos, on the other hand, have Melvin Gordon and Javonte Williams. They’ve recorded only seven of Denver’s 69 targets this fall — a rate that’s roughly half what the Panthers did in ’20 and a third of the running back target rate for the ’19 Saints.

There’s also offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, who for all his faults as a head coach (19-46, but forced to coach the Browns and Giants because the football gods refuse to allow him to get that boulder all the way up the hill) has had success wringing potential from overlooked quarterbacks. Nick Foles (2013), Sam Bradford (2016), and Case Keenum (2017) all had their most efficient seasons in years where Shurmur served as OC. Now he’s got Bridgewater looking downfield and lobbing bombs.

This wasn’t supposed to be Teddy’s job. He was supposed to be the slow and steady alternative to Drew Lock’s penchant for eyes-closed cannon shots into double coverage downfield. Instead, he’s not only taken Lock’s job but also supplanted him as the Broncos’ best deep-ball thrower. That’s wild.

Alright, settle down, those two wins came over the Giants and Jaguars

Yeah,

(sighs)

yeah.

The competition in this tiny sample size has been opening level of Super Mario Bros. easy. The Giants currently rank 27th in defensive DVOA. The Jaguars are 24th. Each ranks in the bottom 10 when it comes to passer rating allowed this fall. I, of course, did not need to explain this to you because you saw those team names are immediately said “oh yeah, the Giants and Jaguars, those don’t count.”

Then you get to Bridgewater’s 2020 season, which offered similar glimmers of hope before grinding to a disappointing finish. Those Panthers went from 0-2 to 3-2 with wins over the Chargers and Cardinals before crashing to a 5-11 finish as Bridgewater’s efficacy faded. This was enough for Carolina head coach Matt Rhule to cut bait and instead reel in Sam Darnold to be his new starting quarterback, which is like replacing your Honda Accord with a preowned BMW that may or may not have an engine inside, no one’s checked.

Let’s look at those first five weeks that made it briefly look like the Panthers had found a potential franchise QB. Bridgewater put up big yardage stats in those games, but he was buoyed massively by post-catch runs rather than his newfound penchant for going long:

He’s throwing the ball more than 50 percent further than he had to start 2020 but still completing more of his passes. He’s getting sacked more often but making fewer bad decisions. He’s finding the end zone at a rate that would more than double his previous career best. Even if he regresses, this will probably still be the best Teddy Bridgewater we’ve ever seen.

Fine, how should that affect my bets?

I’m glad you asked, since this *is* BetFTW and so far I’ve burned 1,000 words marveling over two good games against two bad teams. A third bad team is coming Sunday, and the line for the Jets’ visit to Colorado has already moved from -7 for the home team to -10.5. Since this is a New York team that outgained the Patriots by 76 yards last week and still managed to lose by 19, that still feels low. Chase the over (down from 42.5 to 41) if you have any faith in a Zach Wilson bounce-back game, even against the Broncos’ top 10 defense. I personally do not after the Jaguars mustered a single scoring drive against that unit at home in Week 2.

Next week, Bridgewater will face a Ravens team that’s scored at least 27 points in each of its games this season and ranks 22nd in passer rating allowed (104.5). The over/under on this game, as of Wednesday over at Tipico, is only 46.5. If you believe Baltimore is vulnerable against underrated quarterbacks whose 2021 revival is based on embracing deep balls (see Week 1 and Derek Carr), you can also get the Broncos straight up at what will probably be a solid price.

I’m not sold on any Broncos futures yet and certainly not touching NFL yardage leader Teddy Bridgewater at +4000, but hey, do what makes you happy.

***

The fact of the matter is Bridgewater will almost certainly not be the 2021 NFL MVP. That’s fine! He doesn’t need to be in order to push the Broncos from the malaise of four straight losing seasons and into the playoffs for the first time since Peyton Manning was their quarterback.

But the Bridgewater most expected in Denver and the player who turned up after a quarterback battle with Drew Lock have been two very different players. That’s very, very good news for a Denver team that only needs a competent passer to be dangerous.