Washington Football Team: Exploring every potential quarterback trade target
QB Teddy Bridgewater, Panthers
The Washington Football Team already has two former Carolina Panthers quarterbacks on their roster in Kyle Allen and Taylor Heinicke. Could they make it three?
It’s certainly possible. Teddy Bridgewater well could be available this offseason after a middling first year with the Panthers. While his 69.1 percent completion rate was the best of his career, he only went 4-11 in 15 starts for the team. And with the Panthers owning a top-10 pick, they may opt to target a quarterback of the future for Matt Rhule’s offense.
That said, Bridgewater is a solid enough starter. He is accurate, can manage a game, and has recovered enough from a brutal knee injury to become a decent scrambler. He posted a career-high 279 rushing yards and five rushing TDs on the year and showed a knack for scrambling at the opportune time.
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Bridgewater isn’t a big-time deep-ball thrower, but he thrives in the short to intermediate game and can occasionally connect on long throws. He has a reasonable contract that will give him cap hits of $23 million and $26 million in the next two seasons and he is still just 28 years old. So, there’s time for him to continue improving as he gets further removed from his 2016 knee injury.
The main concern with Bridgewater would be related to the lack of offensive weaponry in Washington. Bridgewater worked well with D.J. Moore, Robby Anderson, and Curtis Samuel last year, so Washington would need to add at least one more weapon to their offense to make Bridgewater fully comfortable.
Bridgewater would be a low-risk acquisition and probably wouldn’t cost a lot to acquire if the Panthers do move on from him. That said, because of his reasonable cap hit, the Panthers could keep him even if they do opt to draft a quarterback and have Bridgewater compete with the rookie and start until the top pick is ready to play.
So, while Bridgewater certainly could be available, there’s no guarantee that he will be. That will be the case for a lot of passers on this list.