Examining the future of Sam Bradford

It has been reported that the Minnesota Vikings plan on placing Sam Bradford on IR which will end his season.

Sam Bradford’s latest knee problems couldn’t have come at a worse time. He was looking to use this season to establish himself as the Minnesota Vikings long-term starting quarterback. At the very least, he wanted to earn himself a sizeable contract should he hit free agency.

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The problem is that this latest knee injury just backs up what we have seen throughout Bradford’s career. He has only twice started all 16 games in a season while starting 15 last year with the Vikings.

Minnesota is now stuck in a tough situation as far as Bradford is concerned. They recently surrendered a 1^st round pick to land him and now need to decide whether to offer him a new contract. Their decision may boil down to how Case Keenum or Teddy Bridgewater perform down the stretch.

The best case scenario would be for Bridgewater to get back in the starting lineup and show glimpses of his old self. That would allow the Vikings to move forward with him as the starter and allow Bradford to hit free agency.

In this scenario, Bradford would hit the open market likely looking for a 1-year prove it deal. Some possible fits would be the Jacksonville Jaguars, Washington Redskins, Denver Broncos and New York Jets.

Jacksonville would be an interesting fit because when healthy Bradford would serve as a major upgrade to Blake Bortles. The Redskins may be in the market for a quarterback if they allow Kirk Cousins to leave via free agency.

Bradford would serve as a 1-year bridge until Washington could find themselves another young quarterback to develop. Denver would likely be interested as a team that appears a quarterback away from making a Super Bowl run.

However, any interested team will likely hedge their bets and have things in place incase Bradford suffers another injury.