NFL teams
Ben Goessling, ESPN Staff Writer 8y

Vikings put Teddy Bridgewater on IR after ACL tear, knee dislocation

NFL, Minnesota Vikings

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Vikings made it official on Wednesday afternoon that Teddy Bridgewater's season is over.

The Vikings placed their third-year quarterback on injured reserve Wednesday after Bridgewater suffered a catastrophic knee injury on a noncontact play in practice on Tuesday afternoon.

While dropping back to pass early in the team portion of the Vikings' final preseason practice, Bridgewater sustained a complete tear of his ACL and dislocated his knee, leading the Vikings' athletic training staff to rush him to the hospital via a Hennepin County Medical Center ambulance. Bridgewater will have surgery in the next several days, the team announced in a statement Tuesday evening, and could require up to a year to recover from the injury.

With Bridgewater heading to injured reserve, the Vikings re-signed quarterback Brad Sorensen, whom they had added to the roster after Bridgewater was held out of the team's second preseason game in Seattle on Aug. 18 with a sore shoulder.

Sorensen, who had been released by the Vikings on Monday, is back on the roster ahead of the team's final preseason game on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Rams. With Shaun Hill in line to be the Vikings' starting quarterback for now, Sorensen and Joel Stave could get most of the work against the Rams on Thursday.

While the Vikings could look to add another veteran quarterback in the next few days, they'll face major decisions about Bridgewater's future in the coming months. The team has to determine whether to pick up Bridgewater's fifth-year option next May; the Vikings could exercise the option and still release Bridgewater with no penalty before the third day of the 2018 league year.

But if the Vikings do pick up the option and Bridgewater suffers another injury that keeps him out in 2018, his fifth-year option would be guaranteed. That option amount, for quarterbacks taken outside the top 10 of the first round, was $11.36 million.

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