Only five times in NFL history has a quarterback completed 70 percent of his passes. Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater thinks he can be the sixth.
“I think we try to aim to be over 70 percent in the quarterback room,” Bridgewater told the Star-Tribune. “That’s one of our goals. We take pride in completion percentage, we take pride in taking care of the football and commanding the offense. It’s going to be a fun year. I have a ton of weapons at my exposure; and I can’t wait to get everyone going.”
Bridgewater completed 64.4 percent of his passes last year, the third-highest completion percentage for a rookie in NFL history. But increasing to 70 percent in his second year is extremely unlikely. A 70 percent completion rate is really, really hard. Peyton Manning has never done it. Tom Brady has never done it. Aaron Rodgers has never done it. The only active quarterback who has ever completed 70 percent of his passes in a season is Drew Brees, who did it in both 2009 and 2011. And the only other quarterbacks in history who have completed 70 percent of their passes were Ken Anderson in 1982, Joe Montana in 1989 and Steve Young in 1994.
So far this preseason, Bridgewater has completed 78.6 percent of his passes. It’s not realistic to think he’ll complete his passes at close to that rate in the regular season, but Bridgewater has big goals for his second season.
