As the Minnesota Vikings appear to be moving forward with Sam Bradford as the starting quarterback, the future of Teddy Bridgewater remains uncertain. Our question of the week.

@GoesslingESPN how much trade value does Teddy have if fully recovered from injury and would #Vikings consider #VikingsMail — Logan (@zeegodfather) January 26, 2017

@GoesslingESPN: Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to the Vikings' Twitter mailbag. We're going to tweak the format somewhat and take one question each week, so we have a little more time to dive into the topic at hand. We'll start out this week with a tantalizing one: What would Bridgewater's trade value be if he recovers from his knee injury?

It's an intriguing question, and the thing that makes it so interesting is also what makes it so tricky to answer: the timing. Bridgewater dislocated his left knee and tore his ACL on Aug. 30, and no one from the Vikings has put forth a time frame for when he might return. Coach Mike Zimmer said in his season-ending press conference that his main concern is for Bridgewater to get healthy, and during a Jan. 15 appearance on ESPN, Zimmer said Bridgewater is "doing well" but added, "We don't know when he'll be back."

Let's say, for the sake of this discussion, that Bridgewater is cleared to return a year after his injury, which might be on the early end of the time frame, given the additional complications associated with a dislocated knee. That puts him back on the field Aug. 30, with the Vikings' training camp already concluded and their preseason all but over. There'd be little time for Bridgewater to show the Vikings, or anyone else, that he's ready to go, and the Vikings would be ostensibly heading into the season with Bradford as their starter. Whatever chance Bridgewater would have to showcase himself would already be gone for the 2017 preseason, so his only chance to get on the field, in our hypothetical time frame, would be in the event of a Bradford injury in the regular season. Even in the event Bridgewater is ready for the final preseason game, it's tough to draw much from a game like that.

The other complicating factor is Bridgewater's contract. The Vikings will have to make a decision on his fifth-year option in May. They'll likely pick it up, to give themselves another year to evaluate the quarterback, but he'd be slated for an eight-figure salary in 2018 (the fifth-year option for quarterbacks taken from picks 11-32 of the 2013 draft, the year before Bridgewater's selection, was $11.357 million). You'd be asking a team to gamble that Bridgewater is a) healthy enough to be their long-term solution, and b) effective enough to be worth starting quarterback money, since he'd be playing on his fifth-year option or a new deal in 2018.

And if he meets those qualifications, it's always possible the Vikings could just decide to keep him. He's almost five years to the day younger than Bradford (he doesn't turn 25 until Nov. 10), and while Bradford's relationship with offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur means there's a good chance he'll be the team's quarterback for the next several years, the Vikings could play things out for a year and see whether Bridgewater is ready to reassert himself as the starter in 2018. Bradford is in the final year of his contract in 2017, though, and agent Tom Condon figures to push for an extension this offseason. The Vikings would have to be reasonably confident in Bridgewater's recovery timetable, or in their ability to get a deal done with Bradford shortly before the 2018 free-agency period, to employ that strategy, but it would be an option.

To sum up, though, it's difficult to see a robust trade market materializing for Bridgewater any time soon, since his value at this point is based on little more than a projection and a belief in his determination to return. The timing of Bridgewater's recovery makes it difficult to conjure up a theater for him to showcase his readiness any time soon. You're probably talking about draft picks in 2018 -- and there's still plenty that would need to happen for a team to deem Bridgewater worthy of valuable picks.