Analytics Reveal Broncos QB Teddy Bridgewater Becoming More Inconsistent of Late
Teddy Bridgewater has been a frustrating quarterback at times. Although he can do some good things, he's not the type of quarterback to elevate a team — and, thus, he isn't the QB the Denver Broncos can build around for the long term.
To be fair to Bridgewater, not every loss the Broncos have had is because of him. However, there has been a troubling trend with his play — he has been inconsistent from one week to the next — and, more recently, has been wildly inconsistent.
Football Outsiders' DYAR has Bridgewater at 473 through 12 games. That means he's averaged slightly below 40 DYAR per game.
What is DYAR? Here's Football Outsiders' definition of its advanced football metric.
DYAR: Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement. A Football Outsiders stat which compares the performance of each player, in terms of DVOA, to a replacement-level baseline rather than the league average for that position, then translates that total into yardage.
On one hand, a quarterback who averages 50 DYAR or more per game is a QB you can win with. On the other hand, Bridgewater's DYAR, week to week, has fluctuated, and in recent weeks, that fluctuation has widened.
Here is the breakdown for Bridgewater for each of the 12 games the Broncos have played:
- vs. NYG: 86
- vs. JAX: 119
- vs. NYJ: 92
- vs. BAL: -34
- vs. PIT: 54
- vs. LV: 14
- vs. CLE: 31
- vs. WFT: 11
- vs. DAL: 53
- vs. PHI: -10
- vs. LAC: 98
- vs. KC: -52
You will notice that Bridgewater was very good in the first three weeks, then had a bad showing against the Baltimore Ravens. After that, he played well overall against the Pittsburgh Steelers — that loss was more about the defense and special teams making mistakes.
However, while Bridgewater had positive DYAR against the Las Vegas Raiders, it was a low number— not a sign of a good performance. He did a little better against the Cleveland Browns (though he was merely okay), but then regressed against the Washington Football Team.
More recently, Bridgewater has turned in two good performances, but each time he has, he's followed it up with a bad game. You can see that in the Week 9 game against the Dallas Cowboys, compared to and followed by his performance vs. the Philadelphia Eagles.
Most concerning is his play against the Los Angeles Chargers coming off the bye week, followed by his play against the Kansas City Chiefs. Bridgewater, despite getting hurt, played one of his best games of the season against the Chargers — only to turn around the next week and produce his worst game of the season on Sunday Night Football.
It's this wildly inconsistent play of late that has made it clear that Bridgewater isn't the long-term answer. While it's not unusual for quality QBs to have a bad game once in a while, you don't expect to see this much fluctuation from week to week.
That lack of consistency is going to make it difficult for the Broncos to get to the playoffs. Bridgewater can't have any more games in negative DYAR, and if he has one at the level of the Raiders or Washington, it's still a problem.
Where it Goes From Here
In the next three weeks, the Broncos play the Detroit Lions, Cincinnati Bengals, and Raiders. None of these teams boast a top-10 defense, as measured by Football Outsiders' DVOA, so Bridgewater has to play better than he did against the Eagles and Chiefs.
Fans shouldn't be expecting 300-plus yards passing with four touchdowns but should expect Bridgewater to be efficient, finding ways to finish drives and avoiding costly turnovers. Do that, and Bridgewater should at least post 50 DYAR.
But regardless of what Bridgewater does, the Broncos will likely be exploring the QB market in 2022. Because while one can argue that Bridgewater isn't the real problem with the team, the advanced analytics show he isn't the solution.
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