Teddy Posts Pics of Him Practicing w/ Former College Teammate Devante Parker
Joe Johnson
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At some point, this won’t be newsworthy anymore but right now it’s still so freaking great to see Teddy Bridgewater back in action. Regardless of where you stand on whether or not Teddy is the future or not, it’s objectively awesome to see him playing football again considering he was one bad move/minute away from not only ever playing football again but from even being able to walk regularly or retain his left leg.
https://twitter.com/teddyb_h2o/status/886286857146949632
As some of you may remember, a lot of people wanted Devante Parker to play for the Vikings back before the 2015 draft. The 2015 draft was the who’s who of former Bridgewater teammates as both Parker (who played with Teddy at Louisville) and then Alabama/now Oakland Raider standout Amari Cooper (who played with Teddy in High School) were available for the picking. Granted, Cooper went very high (4th overall), but still, it would’ve been awesome to see either in Purple and Gold.
This set of pictures does show Teddy with his brace back on, after a set of pictures lit of the Vikings-sphere because they showed Teddy dropping back without that brace. As someone whose foot/ankle exploded the same time that Teddy’s knee/lower-leg did, braces help with a couple things after your bones/tendons are completely healed. First, they help with stability and comfort, as I’m sure Teddy is pretty sore after practicing A LOT lately. So, he’s trying to get back into game shape after a year of not really using his leg as much as he’s used to. I noticed pretty quickly after my catastrophic injury (I was told it was a high-velocity injury that they typically see from motorcycle accidents, however I broke mine while making a bowl of cereal (long story, or not, leg was asleep, tried to pivot w/ the milk in my hand, ended up rolling my ankle/foot wrong and breaking/dislocating both)) that my calf muscle (especially) lost a ton of its mass pretty quickly. By the end of the 12 weeks of not being allowed to put any weight on my foot/ankle, it was about half the size of my other calf. So, Teddy is essentially rebuilding muscles that atrophied during his time, despite the best efforts of the Vikings training/rehab staff making sure that he was doing everything he could to maintain them.
Secondly, braces help for confidence. I am just speculating but I can’t imagine going back out on the same field that almost ended your career, period, let alone when it happened during such a routine way. As everyone knows, his injury occurred during a non-contact drill and the fact that it happened during something he had done a million times before and will continue to do a million times, is sort of scary. So, having that brace on helps alleviate that fear by giving some additional support, it’s just like me strapping on my boot every time I go for some Captain Crunch. I wouldn’t be surprised if Teddy rocked that brace in games for the foreseeable future (if/when he plays again, for the Vikings) just for that extra confidence.
Either way, it’s great to see Teddy back in action and while I doubt he’ll be back in 2017, he definitely will be back and that’s something for everyone to cheer about.