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Back in March, Teddy Bridgewater's pro day went so poorly that the quarterback once considered the best in his class was now being talked about as a second-round pick. Never mind that pro days aren't supposed to mean much; suddenly, they meant everything, and plenty of media draft experts scurried to readjust their rankings to reflect Bridgewater's struggles in shorts and a t-shirt.
The Vikings eventually drafted Bridgewater with the last pick in the first round, and he'll get every opportunity to start as a rookie. And when he takes the field you can be assured of one thing: He'll be wearing gloves, something he did during college when he completed 71 percent of his passes as a junior, but not during his pro day, when he completed just 57 of 65 attempts.
The decision to wear gloves fascinates the media, though Bridgewater doesn't think it's a big deal.
"Man, I don't think gloves have been much of a deal like this since Michael Jackson," Bridgewater told USAToday.com. "But to this day and for the rest of my career, I'm going to continue to wear gloves."
So why didn't he wear the glove during his pro day?
“I was training down in Florida,'' Bridgewater said back in March, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "It was 80-degree weather, sunny outside, so I was letting the ball spin without the glove and I just felt confident going into the pro day. I trust my training, I’m always confident in my training, so going into competition I trust preparation. So I went back to Louisville and the weather changed, it was a little cold outside, the ball gets a little rough and I still decided to go without the glove.”
Bridgewater will wear Nike gloves engineered specifically for quarterbacks.
It feels like the ball actually — like the texture of the ball," Bridgewater said. "I guess that's why it's a perfect match for when the ball is in my hand. When the ball is in my hand, it just sticks to my hand. It feels like I'm bare-handed, but I'm not."
Kurt Warner, who wore gloves for part of his career and had great success, told Bridgewater that it was important to stick with what made him successful.
"'Wearing gloves got you where you are to this day,'" Bridgewater recounetd Warner saying. "I'm just going to continue to do that."
