Vikings Lose Quarterback For Season

Football players can be matter-of-fact about injuries. Injuries happen in a violent sport.

But not all injuries are created equal. And the players are not always so simply accepting.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater dislocated his knee, tore his anterior cruciate ligament and suffered other structural damage (but none to nerves or arteries) in a non-contact drill at Tuesday’s practice. So awful was the immediate crack of bone and the sight of their teammate in pain that early reports indicated some players vomited on the field.

As Bridgewater was taken away by ambulance and practice ended early, players prayed on the field and some cursed audibly as they considered both their teammate’s fate and the team’s.

Bridgewater will surely miss the season after his surgery and he’ll face a grueling rehab. The Vikings, who some considered Super Bowl contenders, will now look for an answer at the game’s most critical position, with 15-year veteran Shaun Hill now the starter.

Bridgewater had played well in Minnesota’s third preseason game, the one that christened its new U.S. Bank Stadium. Optimism reigned. Now hope seemed gone.

Coach Mike Zimmer couldn’t have put a best face on this if he were the world’s greatest makeup artist but he tried. “We’re going to go out and fight like we always do,” he said.

It will truly be a fight. The games will go on. The team will pull together as best it can with the resources it can muster. Head athletic trainer Eric Sugarman said in a statement that “although the recovery time will be significant, we expect Teddy to make a full recovery.”

We can only hope he is right. The third-year quarterback appeared ready to lead the Vikings back to prominence and now that task will fall to others while everyone wishes Bridgewater that full recovery in the shortest possible time.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman