Teddy Bridgewater is practicing at a high level and believes that he’ll play in 2017. But he won’t return to action in Week 8 when the Minnesota Vikings take on the Cleveland Browns at London’s Twickenham Stadium.
“As one source explained it, the Vikings and Bridgewater definitely don’t want him to play next week in London, given the notoriously slippery surfaces of the soccer pitches that periodically transmogrify into gridirons, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported.
Florio reports the earliest Bridgewater would play is Week 10. The Vikings will be on a bye in Week 9, then will return to action for a road game against the Washington Redskins. Most of the remaining schedule involves indoor games, but Minnesota does have December road games against the Carolina Panthers and Green Bay Packers.
Wet, slippery fields are certainly possible at those sites, as well. Hopefully Bridgewater will have played by then and helped ease some of the fears that playing him for the first time will unquestionably yield.