Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
For Minnesota Vikings fans, the day is here. Teddy Bridgewater is (finally) going to start Sunday as they face the Atlanta Falcons. He played fairly well last Sunday against the New Orleans Saints in an extremely difficult situation, but failed to get the Vikings into the endzone. He’ll be a good quarterback eventually, but will struggle in the near future with so few weapons around him.
As if playing in New Orleans against a Saints team in a must-win situation wasn’t tough enough, Bridgewater will start his first NFL game against a Falcons team that looked like it could have scored triple digits against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at home last Thursday. He’ll be doing so without Adrian Peterson – out for the foreseeable future — or Kyle Rudolph, — out six weeks with groin surgery — two of Minnesota’s top three weapons heading into the season.
In terms of fantasy football value, while Matthew Berry has predicted the Vikings will rely heavily on the pass during Peterson’s absence, all quarterbacks need decent receivers to catch said passes. Cordarelle Patterson is an exciting prospect, but cannot overcome double-teams the same way larger, more elite wide receivers might be able to. Greg Jennings appears more than past his prime and the Vikings released Jerome Simpson. Lack of options against the ninth-ranked defense is a bad combination.
With Peterson lined up in the backfield, the defense has to at least pay some attention to the threat of a run. Even if the slow-footed Matt Asiata, Peterson’s replacement, is put in wide open space, defenders know he can be chased down with little to no threat of breaking a huge run. As that is the case, look for a lot of blitzes from the Falcons to force Bridgewater into getting rid of the ball more quickly than he’d like to.
Bridgewater is a talented, young quarterback and the home crowd will be behind him early, but I can’t imagine this tilt, or really any of the Vikings’ next few games, will be particularly close. There is always the opportunity for garbage points at the ends of blowouts, but it’s hard to rely on that for consistent fantasy value.
I’ll predict 230 yards and a score Sunday for Teddy Bridgewater as the Vikings lose handily to the Falcons.
Anthony F. Irwin is an NBA, NFL, MLB and NCAA Football contributor for www.Rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google. Send him an email at .
