Teddy Bridgewater speaks about Sam Darnold holdout

Quarterback Teddy Bridgewater recently spoke about the whole Sam Darnold holdout with the New York Jets. As always, Bridgewater kept everything professional when speaking to the media.

At this point in time, rookie quarterback Sam Darnold is officially holding out from participating in New York Jets training camp due to his contract. It’s hard to place blame on him or the Jets in this situation since it’s just a part of the business.

Quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, who looked solid in his first day of training camp, is ready to take advantage of the situation. More reps in training camp for him and veteran quarterback Josh McCown is always a good thing. In the grand scheme of things, this is an open quarterback competition with one player not even participating. All of which bodes well for the others competing to earn a starting position.

Bridgewater is the ultimate professional both on and off the field. When asked about the whole Darnold holdout, he said all the right things to continue being upbeat about the whole process.

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Courtesy of the Media Relations Department of the Jets, here is what Bridgewater said about Darnold missing the first day of training camp:

On obviously Sam Darnold wasn’t here today, what do you miss by missing a practice during training camp as a rookie…

You gain knowledge with experience. I was able to develop relationship with Sam over the spring and continued throughout the summer. I look forward to him being here, when he gets here. I’m excited to have him on this team, I’m excited to be in the same room as him. A guy who can bring so much value to the team. We know how important he is in the quarterback room as a young guy also. We look forward to him being here and picking up right where he left off in the spring.

Ideally, this isn’t a knock on Darnold or throwing him under the bus because he’s greedy and wants to squeeze every dollar out of the Jets. Remember everyone, it’s nothing personal but business. There is likely specific language Darnold and his agent wants in his Jets rookie contract to be comfortable with. Obviously, both sides want to be crystal clear about everything so no one is taking advantage of the other.

Darnold’s deal will get sorted out one way or the other but the more he holds out, the better someone like Bridgewater will stand out to the leadership regime. If Darnold ends up missing weeks of training camp, it will only hinder his transition to the pros. He can also forget about earning the starting quarterback position on the Jets since he’ll be behind in almost everything.

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This was the last thing the Jets needed and a big surprise to start training camp with. No one expected Darnold to holdout over his rookie contract but it is what it is. All we can do now is wait to see what transpires as the other players the Jets have at quarterback prepare for the season ahead.