How does a QB thrive under pressure? For Teddy Bridgewater, it's all about having 'that feel' for the pass rush

ENGLEWOOD. Colo. — Early in Teddy Bridgewater’s eight-year career, his feel for pressure and mobility were considered to be among his primary attributes. He could escape and keep a play alive. He had the ability to go beyond the initial design of the play.

Last Sunday, the Broncos benefitted from this capability. His escapes from pressure — even including a stiff-arm to buy time to find Albert Okwuegbunam for a fourth-down touchdown — were invaluable.

“Teddy’s not the fastest guy on the planet,” said offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, who worked with Bridgewater in Minnesota in 2016 and 2017 before reuniting with him this spring.

“But he sure can be elusive, and he knows when to get down. He knows how to get yardage and the way he maneuvers the pocket gives him the best chance to keep a play alive.”

The question when watching quarterbacks dodge, dart and elude is this: Is this something that can be learned? Or is it all about feel, something that comes naturally.

“That’s a good question,” Bridgewater said when it was posed Wednesday at his mid-week press conferences. “When you’re out there in the games and there’s so much going on around you, you just have to have that feel and you have a clock in your head as well.”

Such ability can be nurtured and developed. But much of it is innate, Shurmur noted.

“I think he has an innate ability to do that and this is three-dimensional; it’s oblique,” Shurmur said. “There are a lot of ways to see things and make things happen and some guys just have a feel for when things are breaking down.

“It’s natural. A lot of it has been trained but when you train it over many, many years then it becomes somewhat innate, and I think he’s got that ability.”

The final aspect of this is beyond the quarterback — it’s getting everyone involved in protection to know that while Bridgewater can escape and buy time with his ability to sense the rush and his nimbleness, he still needs some help from up front.

“[Shurmur] always talks about screening for five seconds,” Bridgewater said, “and you watch the game Sunday guys were blocking for five seconds, six seconds screening, and that’s what we love to see.”

It’s also what makes it possible for the play’s result to exceed the design, and for the Broncos to leap to what they hope is a better offensive level than they’ve known since the Manning era.