FULL HEARTS

High School Coach Will Be Super Bowl Contenders’ Backup Quarterback

Teddy Bridgewater was coaching his alma mater to a high school state championship earlier this month. Now he’s back in the league.

Talk about a whirlwind of a year. The one-time journeyman NFL quarterback Teddy Bridgewater was announced Thursday as a late-season signing for the Detroit Lions, setting him up to launch a Super Bowl run mere weeks after winning a state championship in Florida as a high school coach. Bridgewater, 32, retired from the NFL at the end of the 2023 season after 10 years in the league where he was largely a fan-favorite backup. He told reporters in January he was moving to Miami to return his alma mater to glory and did just that, delivering Northwestern Senior High School a state championship on Dec. 14. Now Bridgewater is headed to Detroit to serve as star QB Jared Goff’s backup as the 13-2 Lions push to win their first Super Bowl—something they’re the odds-on second favorite to do, trailing only Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Bridgewater said his surprise return was months in the making and that he will return to coaching high school afterwards. “My team knows that’s the plan,” he told NFL Network. “We wanted to win a state championship and then coach goes back to the league, see what happens, and then come back February.”