Vic Fangio pushes all his chips in with Teddy Bridgewater choice
Aug 25, 2021, 11:48 AM
On Wednesday, Vic Fangio finally made a decision. He picked Teddy Bridgewater to be the Broncos starting quarterback in 2021.
It’s a defendable decision. After all, Bridgewater has played well during the preseason.
In two appearances, the veteran was 16-of-19 for 179 yards and two touchdowns. Those are stellar numbers.
Of course, his competition was equally as good. In the preseason, Drew Lock was 14-of-21 for 231 yards and two scores.
Despite this performance from the third-year quarterback, who was picked by the team in the second round of the 2021 NFL Draft and was the incumbent, Fangio went with Bridgewater. He went with the quarterback he deems as the “safer” option.
That interests the head coach because he’s on the hot seat. During his first two seasons in Denver, he’s 12-20 overall. He’s also 0-7 in September.
Those trends have to end. The Broncos open the season at the Giants, at the Jaguars and home against the Jets, three teams that went 9-39 a season ago. They have to get off to a good start in 2021.
Even that might not be enough. Denver has one of the league’s easiest schedules, a slate stocked with the Eagles, Lions, Bengals and other cellar dwellers. In other words, they’ll never have an easier path to the postseason.
That’s just one of the reasons why the mantra of the season should be “Playoffs or bust.” The QB decision also made that the goal.
If the Broncos don’t make the postseason in 2021, the decision to go with Bridgewater will have been a disaster. They will have stunted the development of their young quarterback for nothing in return. If Denver doesn’t make the playoffs this year, what was the point of going with the veteran option?
That’s the corner Fangio has painted himself into. By selecting Bridgewater, the head coach has to get off to a good start. Anything short of 3-0 or 2-1 will put him on the hot seat, making him a candidate to be the first coach fired this season. And failing to make the playoffs will do the same.
If Fangio leads the Broncos to a 9-8 season, breaking their string of sub-.500 seasons, but misses the postseason, there will be a temptation to keep him around. After all, it’ll be a 3.5-game improvement from a year ago.
But if he can’t make the playoffs with the highest-priced defense in the league, which plays to his side of the ball, a veteran quarterback that he picked and an unbelievably favorable schedule, he never will. It sets up perfectly for the head coach to prove that he can get it done.
Fangio has shown during the preseason that he likes to gamble, rolling the dice multiple times on fourth down. Now, he just pushed all of his chips into the middle of the table.
By picking Teddy Bridgewater, Vic Fangio is all in. He has no wiggle room. He has no scapegoat.
It’s “playoffs of bust” in 2021.
