I recorded the Game last night and watched it this morning.   I was extremely impressed with what I saw from Bridgewater last year against Florida in the Bowl game, and this was the first chance that I had to watch him this season.  My first goal watching the game was to separate the name from the player.  By that I mean that i wanted to actually watch how the kid played and not be swayed by the agenda of the announcers (trust me, they all have them good or bad). 

 

The biggest plus that I see for Teddy is that he is running a truly Pro-Style system.  By that I don't mean formations, the NFL at this point has been flooded with any and all alignments.  When i say pro-style I am referring specifically to the fact that Teddy comes to the line with responsibilities of identifying the Middle linebacker to set the protection schemes as well as having the ability to change plays and adjust routes to get the team in the right play.  That's a lot different than the teams where you see the whole offense look over to the sideline for a call and the QB has little or no say.  I think that on a lot of early third downs he was getting his team into pick and crossing routes against the man blitzing concepts of rutgers and that was a feather in his cap.

 

Overall he looks like a First round QB prospect.  He shows the arm-strength and accuracy on short and intermediate routes that you would expect from a First round QB prospect.  He didn't make any horrible decisions with the ball.  That's another key.  As a Florida fan who still has high hopes for Jeff Driskle i know the feeling when a QB is constantly trying to throw into tripple coverage.  That's not a problem with Teddy that i could detect. 

 

The not so good has to do with his accuracy to the deep third of the field.  That's what seperates First round QB's from flush my whole season down the drain just give me that guy #1 overall QB's.  In Teddy's case there is a structural element of having less than desirable Hand Size that can affect Grip on the ball and how it comes out of his hands, not just misses or timing.  On Far too many passes down the field the ball seems to flutter.  Manning doesn't have a perfect spiral all the time but on more than one occasion there were a couple wounded ducks, one really bad at about 12:35 to go in the third quarter that should have been intercepted.

 

Was it the gloves?  Was it the elements?  Maybe.  That's why i'm curious to see more games of his this coming year, but last night while you could tell that he is a polished First round prospect at the position you also have to acknowledge that there were 4-7 throws that were affected by his grip or lack there of that will most likely be turnovers at the next level. 

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