Lions news: Inside Teddy Bridgewater’s incredible, inspirational year

The Athletic has fantastic story about Teddy Bridgewater’s inspirational year as high school coach and Lions backup quarterback.

The life of Detroit Lions quarterback Teddy Bridgewater is fascinating and inspiring. From his return from a brutal injury to his infectious personality, Bridgewater is one of the most interesting people in football.

Nothing encapsulates who Bridgewater is as a person more than his 2024 season. After the Lions were eliminated in Conference Championship, Bridgewater returned home to Florida to start his coaching career where it all started. He became the head coach of his old high school, Miami Northwestern, devoted a ton of his time and money to the program, and immediate took them to a state championship. Then he returned to Detroit for another playoff run, even leading the Lions to a touchdown drive in the Divisional Round.

Dan Pompei of The Athletic has the whole story of Bridgewater’s incredible year, and it comes with some heart-warming stories. For example, Deangelo Thompson Jr., a young defensive end who was ready to quit football after the death of his parents.

“Mentally, I was not good,” Thompson told The Athletic. “I was ready to stop playing football. Coach Teddy took me in and showed me genuine love. Those were dark times and he showed me light. He made me a part of his family and changed my life. I’ll love Coach Teddy forever.”

Per Pompei, Thompson tallied 14 sacks in 2024 and earned a scholarship to Syracuse.

His story is full of wonderful anecdotes like that, and it will guaranteed make you an even bigger fan of Bridgewater. There’s even a few more stories about he helped out the Lions players in 2024.

And in case you were wondering about his future, it’s going to be the same as it was last year. He’ll coach Miami Northwestern while keeping the NFL door open after the season.

Read the entire story here.

• More from The Athletic: Colton Pouncy has a nice deep dive on Kelvin Sheppard, including predictions on what the Lions’ defensive scheme may look like under their new defensive coordinator.

• Happy anniversary, coach!

• On locker clean-out day, Alim McNeill gave an update on his injury and how he’ll attack rehab during the offseason.

• On the latest St. Brown Podcast, Lions pending free agent Craig Reynolds is the guest, and he tells a funny story about how him and Amon-Ra barely even talked to each other in their first years with the team.

• Lions Wire always does a great job covering the Senior Bowl. So if you’re already in NFL Draft mode, you can catch their Day 1 Senior Bowl recap show here.

• Dan Orlovsky thinks the Lions offense is in fine hands as long as Dan Campbell is still in charge: