Thursday Night Football picks and prop bets: The battle of discarded Viking quarterbacks

Will Teddy Bridgewater or Case Keenum lead his team over .500 Thursday night?

Teddy Bridgewater vs. Case Keenum isn’t the quarterback battle we wanted for Thursday Night Football in Week 7. It’s the battle we need.

The showdown between the Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns will feature two quarterbacks who once brought the Minnesota Vikings to the playoffs before being ejected from the land of 1,000 lakes by the cruel winds of fate. Bridgewater’s tenure was cut short by a catastrophic preseason knee injury that nearly ended his football career. Keenum faced an even more ignominious fate; the Vikes looked at his 12-3 record in 2017 and decided “you know who could improve on that? Kirk Cousins.”

Both have taken journeyman paths to get here. Bridgewater toiled with the New York Jets and was traded to the New Orleans Saints where he revitalized his career as Drew Brees’ understudy. A stint as a starter in Carolina didn’t work out, but his Denver debut began with promise before a recent three-game losing streak.

Keenum was also John Elway’s answer in Colorado once, but his lone year as a starter there only contributed to the franchise’s four losing-season streak. 2019 dropped him in Washington, where no good thing has happened to a quarterback in decades. Now he’s the league’s third-highest paid backup in Cleveland — and he’ll get the opportunity to justify his salary with Baker Mayfield nursing a bum shoulder.

Thus, we get some subtext to a battle between two overlooked but often fun passers in a game featuring two .500 teams in need of a statement. Who’ll come out ahead? Let’s dig in. All odds via Tipico.