By John Shipley, St. Paul Pioneer Press

MINNEAPOLIS —The honeymoon for Teddy Bridgewater appears to be over; the question now is whether the rookie quarterback and the Minnesota Vikings have a long marriage ahead.

Thrust into the starting role earlier than anticipated, Bridgewater is 3-4 as an NFL starter. Coach Mike Zimmer continued to support him this week but was critical of his play in the Vikings’ past two games, losses to NFC North rivals Chicago and Green Bay.

“He wasn’t as accurate in this ballgame as he normally is,” Zimmer said after Monday’s video postmortem of a 24-21 loss to the Packers at TCF Bank Stadium. “I think he might’ve been getting under and dropping the ball down a little bit too much, and the ball was sailing on him. But he needs to be more accurate, as well.”

The question of whether the Vikings again have hitched their wagon to the wrong quarterback was raised this week by ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck and less conspicuously by Bridgewater’s statistics, which are remarkably similar to those put up by Christian Ponder in his first seven NFL starts with the Vikings.

Hasselbeck, who played parts of four NFL seasons but started only five games, reiterated his assessment that Bridgewater can have a nice, long NFL career — as a backup. That hasn’t changed, he said, since he first rated Bridgewater in February.

“Every time I say something about a quarterback being a career backup, people say, ‘Hey, you had more interceptions than touchdowns, what do you know?’ “ Hasselbeck said.

“I wasn’t a very good pro, but what’s on tape is your resume; it’s what you are, period. That’s the case for everybody, including me. You can’t run from it.

“My assessment of Teddy Bridgewater, why I don’t believe he’s a long-term starter in the NFL, is more about what I see on tape and what he is physically capable of doing more than anything else.”

Against the Packers, Bridgewater led the team on a fourth-quarter touchdown drive to pull the Vikings within three points with more than three minutes remaining, and his ability to lead the offense late — they also rallied for an overtime victory at Tampa Bay — is something the Vikings like. Bridgewater is, as his coaches and teammates like to remind us, a cool customer.

But the Vikings might not have been trying to rally had Bridgewater made better passes to receiver Charles Johnson on two first-half drives. On their first, Johnson was open in a wide pocket near the Packers’ 20-yard line and might have been able to score had the ball been catchable. It wasn’t, sailing far over his head.

In the second quarter, Johnson’s defender tripped and fell, leaving him alone at the Packers’ 5-yard line. Bridgewater’s pass was catchable, but Johnson had to reverse course and turn around to try to make a diving catch near the sideline. He couldn’t.