Teddy Bridgewater is stepping away from football, and Dan Campbell made it clear the Lions are losing more than a backup quarterback.
Campbell said Sunday that Bridgewater, a veteran presence who spent parts of three seasons around the team, is leaving the game. The Lions coach leaned into the personal side of it, pointing back to their shared New Orleans history and the kind of imprint Bridgewater left wherever he went.
"Teddy Bridgewater is going to step away. I've known Teddy a long time.
The human being is unbelievable. Certainly, the player, everything that he's about," Campbell said.
"The type of teammate he is, the way he prepares, always played the game up here and had a huge heart. He's gonna be missed.
I'll never forget 2019 when Drew got injured. We had just gone out to the Rams, got beat out there, and Drew got his thumb.
We lost him for five weeks. Teddy stepped in, we won five in a row, man.
That was Teddy. Just his time being with us meant a lot, and meant a lot to our guys.
He's gonna be missed."
Bridgewater’s path back to Detroit has been anything but straight. He first arrived with the Lions in 2023 and backed up Jared Goff during the run to the NFC Championship game. After that season, he said he was retiring and went back to Florida to coach at his alma mater high school.
That detour didn’t last forever. After leading his team to a state championship in his first season on the sideline, Bridgewater returned to the Lions late in the 2024 season. He jumped Hendon Hooker on the depth chart, then got into a series during Detroit’s Divisional Round loss to the Washington Commanders.
Bridgewater then signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2025 to back up Baker Mayfield. He had signed with the Lions this offseason, but Campbell said the way this exit has unfolded makes him think it may be final.
"I think only he can truly answer that, but I feel like this is where it's at for sure right now," Campbell said. "This is where it needs to be, where he felt and his biggest worry was letting us down.
That's the type of guy he is, and he's not. That's as far as it can get.
Meant a lot."
Now the Lions are thin behind Goff. The roster currently includes only the starter and undrafted free agent Luke Altmyer, who has taken the bulk of the second-team snaps over the last two practices with Bridgewater away from the team. For now, Altmyer is in line for that same workload.
Campbell said help is coming, and it could arrive quickly.
"We're gonna add somebody. We like Luke.
Luke is growing, Luke is getting better, he just needs reps. He needs a million reps," Campbell said.
"With the reps that he's gotten he has improved. So we like him, but we are gonna add somebody, and we'd like to add a veteran quarterback.
We're hoping something happens tomorrow, we'll see, but that's the plan."
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