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Ann Heisenfelt/Associated Press

Why He'll Improve: Midseason improvement in 2014.

Per Football Outsiders data, Bridgewater was the fourth-worst quarterback in the league through Week 8 last season, compiling minus-238 DYAR. From Week 9 on, Bridgewater had 78 DYAR. It's a case of splits happening, but over that timespan, he was statistically better than Andrew Luck.

And this season, with the hope of a healthy Mike Wallace and an incredibly motivated Adrian Peterson, Bridgewater will have even more weapons to work with. What happens if this is the year Cordarrelle Patterson starts playing like an NFL wideout?

There are multiple reasons to believe in Bridgewater anyway, but from any angle you look at it, his worst-case scenario is probably staying as a mid-tier quarterback. That's better than he showed us if we take last season as a whole.

Runner-up: Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals. (Regression)—NFL quarterbacks tend to be steady, but Dalton's dive last year was wildly out of line with his past and probably caused mostly by injuries at the skill positions. Even if it's a blip, though, he's not exactly going to turn into a superstar.