Seahawks’ Bruce Irvin hopes to rattle ‘really good friend’ Teddy Bridgewater again

RENTON – Seahawks linebacker Bruce Irvin meant it when he said Seattle’s defense had quarterback Teddy Bridgewater “scared” and “rattled” following a 38-7 win over Minnesota in December. And he’ll do what he can to ensure the same thing happens when the two teams meet again in Sunday’s wild-card game.

One important clarification, though: The two are “really good” friends, according to Irvin.

“That’s my man,” he said Thursday. “But I speak the truth. We had him rattled.”

Irvin said they’ve been friends since playing each other in college, when he was at West Virginia and Bridgewater was at Louisville. They’ve also trained together in Miami, where Bridgewater is from.

“He’s really a good quarterback,” Irvin said. “But it is what it is. Come Sunday I’m gonna try to rattle him again.”

Bridgewater had one of his least productive games of the season in the first meeting with Seattle, completing 17 of 28 attempts for 118 yards, no touchdowns and an interception. The Seahawks sacked him four times and held him to 4.21 yards per attempt, a season-low.

Irvin said his comments about Bridgewater afterward – which appeared in an NFL.com story by Mike Silver – weren’t meant as an insult.

“If we say anything, especially on the Seahawks, it gets magnified and blown out of proportion and made into something that really I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, “but people just ran with it.”

The two actually exchanged jerseys after that first meeting. Irvin said he asked Bridgewater during the game – as he was getting up from a tackle – if he wanted to swap. Bridgewater’s jersey was still hanging in Irvin’s locker as he spoke with reporters Thursday. Irvin joked that Bridgewater probably “trashed” his jersey after reading what he had said about him.