We're one week away from the two-year anniversary of the awful knee injury that changed the trajectory of Teddy Bridgewater's career as well as the Vikings' path.
Without that injury, there is no Sam Bradford trade. There is no Case Keenum, no Minneapolis Miracle and no Kirk Cousins. And Bridgewater, had he stayed healthy, probably would be the Vikings QB on a loaded team with Super Bowl aspirations instead of with the Jets — wondering where (and if) he will get to play this season, as trade rumors swirl.
The two-year mark is a key one, as we learned from a ESPN.com story in which the surgeon who performed Bridgewater's massive knee procedure talked — with Teddy's permission — about the process and journey for the first time.
The surgeon, Dan Cooper, did not mince words.
"It was just a horribly grotesque injury," Cooper said.
The good doctor was talking about the quarterback's left knee, which had exploded without warning nine days earlier while Bridgewater was dropping back to pass, untouched, in a practice.
"It's mangled," Cooper said. "You make the skin incision, and there's nothing there. It's almost like a war wound. Everything is blown."
Cooper, the Cowboys team physician, was recommended by Bill Parcells. He performed two surgeries — the first major one lasting more than four hours while he repaired the mangled knee. It was hanging together by one ligament, the doctor said. Cooper fixed Bridgewater's ACL and then five more ligaments. He then transplanted one of Bridgewater's hamstring tendons to his knee.
