Teddy Bridgewater: Retirement is official this time

Teddy Bridgewater returned to the NFL after announcing his retirement at the end of the 2023 season, but he was back in uniform before the end of the 2024 season.

Bridgewater said on Monday that his second retirement is going to be a lasting one. Bridgewater stepped away from the Lions this weekend and they placed him on the reserve/retired list on Sunday.

“This time it’s official,” Bridgewater wrote in a post to his Instagram account.

Bridgewater went on to recall his comeback from a 2016 knee injury that he described as “gruesome” and created doubt about his ability to play football again. Bridgewater returned to the Vikings before the end of the 2017 season and played for most of the next decade, but he wrote “this wheel of mine can no longer deal with something as simple as standing around on a turf field.”

The Vikings selected Bridgewater in the first round in 2014 and he went on to play for the Saints, Panther, Broncos, Lions and Buccaneers. He returned to the Lions as a free agent this offseason, but the newly signed Josh Dobbs is now set to back up Jared Goff in Detroit.