At one point this past season, the talk was growing that Teddy Bridgewater would not only be the first quarterback taken in the 2014 NFL draft, he would be the first player overall. By the time the final week before the draft arrived, predictions had him falling out of the first round completely.
In the end, Bridgewater landed in between: thanks to a trade with the Seattle Seahawks for the 32nd and final pick of the first round Thursday, he is now a Minnesota Viking. The Super Bowl champion Seahawks picked up a second- and fourth-round pick from the Vikings in the trade.
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Bridgewater was the third quarterback taken, after Blake Bortles by Jacksonville and Johnny Manziel by Cleveland.
He burst into the national consciousness in the 2013 Sugar Bowl, when he led Louisville, the maligned champion of what was then the maligned Big East, to a 33-23 defeat of Florida. The Miami native threw for 266 yards and two touchdowns and was easily the dominant player on the field. From that, he leaped into the Heisman Trophy conversation, and his 3,970 yards passing - and a 31-to-4 touchdown-to-interception ratio - kept him on the NFL's radar going into the combine and draft periods. He was deemed by many to be the quarterback most-ready to adjust immediately to the pros.
His pro day in March, in which he was noticeably off-target, started the slide of his reputation - and, if reports surfacing late were to be believed, teams began to doubt his leadership ability and personality, despite almost-unanimously positive reviews of his character, poise and maturity.
Bridgewater was the No. 24 pick in Sporting News' final mock draft , and was ranked fifth among quarterback prospects by NFL.com.