Justin Simmons: 'This Team Needed' Teddy Bridgewater
Sometimes, you don't know what you're missing until suddenly you get it and can look back and realize your ignorance. It's a similar ethos to 'you don't know what you don't know.'
Elementary? Sure. But true nonetheless.
The Denver Broncos thought they had leadership. But after walking the quarterback desert for the past five years, the locker room perhaps didn't realize how badly it had been missing a galvanizing leader under center until Teddy Bridgewater walked through the front door.
We've heard Von Miller, in a Mic'd Up segment during last week's 27-13 win over the New York Giants, tell Bridgewater face to face that the eight-time Pro-Bowl pass rusher hadn't felt that type of spark and energey "since 18 (Peyton Manning)' was around.
That's high praise for Bridgewater, especially coming off a win over a modest opponent like the Giants that nobody expected to be any good this year. Still, anyone with eyes could see that there was an energy about the Broncos in Week 1. It looked different and to the players, it felt different.
On Friday, Broncos' Pro Bowl safety Justin Simmons appeared on NFL Network's Good Morning Football and talked about how Bridgewater might be the hero his team badly needed.
"Teddy's been great. He's just so cool, calm, and collected," Simmons told GMF. "It seems like nothing is really rattling him. Even before the game, he kind of got is in a huddle in the locker room and broke it down. And it wasn't anything fiery, [or] anything like that. It was just cool, calm, and collected like, 'Hey, we got this.' It's that type of leadership over the years that you can see has grown and has been placed over him. It's something that I feel like this team needed."
Are remarks like Simmons' — which have increasingly come out of the woodwork from Broncos players and coaches — an indictment of sorts on Drew Lock? Yes — from a leadership perspective. Or at least, you could interpret it that way. But it's important to remember that once the Broncos made the fateful decision to name Bridgewater QB1, this season was no longer about Lock.
However, for whatever Bridgewater has lacked physically as a quarterback, he's always more than made up for it with his one calling card and the attribute that made him famous and magnetic amongst his peers — leadership. Is Teddy a special quarterback? I'm not sure I'd go that far quite yet.
But he is a special leader, no doubt about it. And that level of leadership is not something Lock has been able to reach in his young NFL career.
However, the early returns on the Broncos this year are proving Simmons right. This team needed a leader and one who could back it up with commensurate play on the field.
In a division with quarterback titans such as Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and yes, even Derek Carr, Simmons is of the full belief that Bridgewater gives the Broncos a shot to go toe-to-toe with Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.
"I'm really excited for Teddy, man," Simmons continued. "I feel like with Teddy there, we have a shot of really making this thing happen. Like I said to the question that was asked earlier about our division, I think someone like Teddy, I think we can make this thing happen."
Next up, the Broncos travel to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars. We'll see if this almost magical ju-ju Bridgewater has conjured thus far can continue its spellbinding effect on the Broncos.
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