Ben Goessling, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Around the Horns: Vikings still learning what to tell Bridgewater

Welcome to Around the Horns, our daily look at what's happening on the Vikings beat:

Teddy Bridgewater played his eighth game of the season on Sunday, effectively finishing his first full half of action as an NFL quarterback. It's too early to make any sweeping conclusions about the quarterback -- and probably difficult to read too much into a season where there have been so many moving parts around Bridgewater -- but coach Mike Zimmer had some interesting comments about Bridgewater's development earlier this week.

Zimmer said during his Wednesday news conference that he "figured [Bridgewater] would be the starter at some point, but I didn't know when." The Vikings began the season with Matt Cassel as their starting quarterback, planning to bring Bridgewater along slowly and give him the job when he was ready to take it. The fact that Bridgewater inherited it during the third game of the season forced the Vikings to speed up their timetable, and they're still learning how to work with a quarterback who seems to study almost to excess at times.

Bridgewater has talked about his tendency to overthink things at times this season, and quarterbacks coach Scott Turner has said he'll see times where the rookie gets stuck on one part of his progression, rather than mentally checking off a receiver and moving on to his next option. As the Vikings are giving Bridgewater game plan information, Zimmer said, they've had to be careful how specific they get, lest Bridgewater gets too mechanized in his thinking.

"He is extremely conscientious and you almost have to be careful that you don’t say, 'Hey, this is what you’re going to get,' because if it doesn’t happen, well, [he says] 'Coach told me this,'" Zimmer said. "I try to be generic in a lot of things that I tell him, and really a lot of times it’s, 'Just be you; you’re good enough. You do things great every day in practice, you do great things at the end of the game.' Probably what I need to do is tell him we’re behind every series when we go out there and we need to score this series because he’s pretty good when he needs to be."

It will take time before playing quarterback becomes more intuitive and less academic for Bridgewater, and the Vikings seem to be looking for ways to get him to mimic the way he plays at the end of games, when things seem to come more natural to him and Bridgewater doesn't get himself in trouble by overanalyzing what he sees from defenses. The Vikings didn't expect to begin the on-field phase of Bridgewater's development as soon as they did, and it could be a while before everything clicks.

"It’s personality, I think, a little bit, too," Zimmer said. "I think each guy is different. You see quarterbacks throughout the league, some guys sit for a year or two, some guys come in and they play right away and play real good. I think it’s all a little bit of people around them, their personality, how the defense helps them. There’s a lot of factors. There’s just so many different variables with the quarterback."

In case you missed it on ESPN.com:

  • ESPN Panthers reporter David Newton and I previewed Sunday's game at TCF Bank Stadium.

  • Cordarrelle Patterson and Sharrif Floyd were among the Vikings players to sit out practice on Thursday with injuries.

Best of the rest:

  • The Vikings will have more than a few running back options to pick from on Sunday, writes John Holler of Viking Update.

  • Mike Harris is ready to start in place of Phil Loadholt on Sunday, says Master Tesfatsion of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

  • Even though Panthers cornerback Josh Norman was critical of Captain Munnerlyn last week, coach Ron Rivera said he's missed Munnerlyn since he signed with the Vikings, according to Chris Tomasson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

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