FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- Dan Cooper knows Teddy Bridgewater's heart like few people do, because Cooper cut open the quarterback's leg on Sept. 8, 2016, when pro football's most stunning comeback began inside a Dallas clinic.
Amputation was no longer a feared possibility, and yet what the surgeon faced that day was something one might see on the set of a sci-fi film.
"It was just a horribly grotesque injury," Cooper said.
The good doctor was talking about the quarterback's left knee, which had exploded without warning nine days earlier while Bridgewater was dropping back to pass, untouched, in a Minnesota Vikings practice.