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Bridgewater, Cassel splitting reps at quarterback for Minnesota Vikings

Eric Edholm

Brian Hoyer might be fending off Johnny Manziel in Cleveland, but another rookie quarterback is getting a fairly good chance to win a starting job early in his first season.

Fox Sports' Jay Glazer reports that Teddy Bridgewater and Matt Cassel are getting equal run at the Minnesota Vikings' starting job.

And in case you did not click on the link, Glazer said (cont'd): "... splitting reps. May not be Week 1 starter but he's definitely been more impressive than they expected."

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The last part is interesting. It almost makes it sound like the Vikings didn't have really high expectations in Year 1 or that they felt he wasn't a perfect immediate fit in Norv Turner's offense.

Clearly, this is good news for the Vikings, who now have options with the course of their season. (An aside: Poor Christian Ponder, who appears to be relegated to a Jimmy Clausen-like existence for the foreseeable future.)

It will be interesting to see how Turner and head coach Mike Zimmer handle things. Let's assume Cassel wins the job out of camp. The Vikings have a challenging start to their schedule with two of the first three and three of the first five games on the road. They open at the Rams, get the Patriots at home, then have road games at the Saints and Packers sandwiched around a home game vs. the Falcons, who some believe are due for a bounceback season.

That's one natural breaking point; if the Vikings struggle through that stretch, they could re-examine the situation and consider turning the ball over to Bridgewater with a slightly less daunting quartet of games — vs. Detroit Lions, at Buffalo Bills, at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, vs. Washington Redskins — before the Week 10 bye.

It would not shock us to see Bridgewater take over at either of those points, and it wouldn't hurt with four of the team's final six games landing at home. That's assuming, of course, that Bridgewater doesn't beat Cassel out of training camp.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!