Bridgewater: 'I was too excited' in Vikings season-opening loss
Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater told reporters today he was "too excited" for the Vikings season-opener at San Francisco Monday night.
The Vikings were beaten 20-3 by the 49ers, and afterwards Bridgewater was singled out by coach Mike Zimmer as a player who didn't perform.
After some reflection on what went wrong, Bridgewater said he thought the emotions of the night just got to him.
"It was the first game of the season. You want to get out there and show all your hard work from training camp, OTAs, the preseason," Bridgewater said during his Wednesday press conference. "And I think I just missed a couple of throws, easy throws that I've made nine out of 10 times in practice, and it played a huge role in the outcome."
As a rookie last season Zimmer often lauded Bridgewater for his composure and maturity after he was thrust into the starter's role when Matt Cassel went down with an injury in week three.
"I take Monday night as a learning experience. We didn't execute well. But now we have to shift our focus to Detroit," Bridgewater added.
Bridgewater wasn't even surprised that Zimmer wasn't shy in his criticism.
"That's what I love. Tough coaching. I try to be my worst critic and to hear it from the head guy, it tells you that you need to step up your game. Hearing that just put that chip on my shoulder," Bridgewater said. "I have to get better and it just show me, and it showed us as a team that we're nowhere near as good as we are. We got outplayed. San-Fran out-executed us on Monday night and it showed."
Bridgewater was sacked five times in the game, and he also accepted the responsibility for those sacks, noting that he should have been better at redirecting protection.
Like Zimmer, many of Bridgewater's teammates are pretty sure the young quarterback will return to form.
"I think he'll bounce back well," receiver Charles Johnson told the Star Tribune. "You don't know what winning is unless you lose. You don't know what good is unless you do bad. It's part of life."
