Minnesota Vikings

Bridgewater, two former Vikings QBs share a connection on 23rd B-day

Published Nov. 10, 2015 4:10 p.m. ET

foxsports

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater celebrated his 23rd birthday on Tuesday.

Happy 23rd Birthday to @Vikings QB @teddyb_h2o. pic.twitter.com/vWCPpxOtrL
— NFL (@NFL) November 10, 2015

Bridgewater has the fourth-most passing yards before his 23rd birthday in NFL history (4,589), according to the Elias Sports Bureau (h/t ESPN's Ben Goessling). That's a pretty impressive statistic on its own, but it gets even stranger when you see who's ahead of him on the list.

The player with the third-most passing yards before his 23rd birthday is former Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton, who had 4,592 yards by 1963. Then, ahead of him, is another quarterback with a connection to the Vikings: Josh Freeman, who threw for 5,306 yards with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before the age of 23. Freeman had a historically terrible outing in his only appearance as a Viking in 2013.

The quarterback with the most passing yards before his 23rd birthday has no connection to the Vikings: Drew Bledsoe (7,049).

While the names involved in this connection of prematurely productive passers make for an interesting conversation, the players themselves don't share much in common outside of this statistic. Little is learned about Bridgewater's future potential by his connection to a Hall of Famer, a flameout and the player who briefly starred in New England before Tom Brady.