Minnesota Vikings rookie QB Teddy Bridgewater looked spun in Monday’s practice. He threw three interceptions and had arguably the worst performance of all the rookies. He looked like the Pro Day jitters haven’t worn off yet. One of the interceptions wasn’t his fault, but first impressions are everything.
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Still, head coach Mike Zimmer liked what his quarterback did by taking risks. He has faith in his young quarterback’s mojo.
“His confidence is not shaken,” Zimmer said. “He’s fine.”
As Bridgewater’s head coach, he’s got to drink the Kool-Aid and instill faith in the Vikings’ future franchise quarterback. But that doesn’t mean he won’t admit Bridgewater made a mistake.
“Obviously we don’t want to throw interceptions in the red zone,” he said to The Star Tibune. “That’s one of our core goals. But it happens. You know, like the DBs, I would always tell them that sometimes you’ve got to get beat in practice to find out how tight you can play them. If you never get beat in practice, you’re probably playing too far off of a guy. If you’re going to get beat, let’s get beat in practice. Let’s learn from what we do out here. And I think that is for everything position. This is where we learn.”
Bridgewater has a lot of learning to do if he wants to take the place of expected starter Matt Cassel.