The Minnesota Vikings fell into a crisis, deeper than most people grasped, at the moment Teddy Bridgewater went down last week with a left knee injury. After years of methodically building a Super Bowl contender, and on the eve of entering a new stadium, the Vikings had arguably the least-talented quarterback group in the 32-team NFL.

Already without their promising starter, the Vikings were one predictable injury away from starting an undrafted rookie who himself is already banged up. How embarrassing to the franchise, and how much of an indictment to its architects, would it have been to see Joel Stave -- yes, Joel Stave -- start in the Week 2 prime-time opening of U.S. Bank Stadium against the NFC North rival Green Bay Packers?

It was a scenario too real to risk, a combination of freak injuries and calculated gambles, and it was a big part of why the Vikings paid a premium Saturday to acquire quarterback Sam Bradford from the Philadelphia Eagles.

Forget whether Bradford is good enough, or can stay healthy long enough, to lift the Vikings back into Super Bowl contention. Without this deal, the Vikings would have been playing 10-on-11 football at some point this season.

I'm only slightly exaggerating.

If nothing else, this deal gave the Vikings' offense a chance to make this season a fair fight. This was severe crisis management, not a bold moon shot to capture a championship.

Bridgewater's backup is Shaun Hill, who is 36 and one of the nicest human beings in the NFL. He also fits squarely in the profile of the veteran that teams love to have on the roster but hope never to use.

Hill has never started more than 10 games in a season, let alone 16. The last time he backed up a quarterback who was injured -- ironically, it was Bradford when the two played for the St. Louis Rams in 2014 -- he was replaced by Austin Davis after just one start. And his admirable habit of standing in the pocket, giving receivers extra time to get open, has left him vulnerable to injuries over the years.

Had something happened to Hill during the first month or so of the season, the next quarterback up would have been Stave -- the former Wisconsin starter who went undrafted and suffered a finger injury in the Vikings' final preseason game. Why Stave? Because the Vikings' 2015 third-stringer, Taylor Heinicke, showed up at training camp with a torn tendon in his foot after trying to kick down a door earlier this summer. (I'm not making that up.)

So here you had a Super Bowl contender that really had no permanent quarterback solution in what was intended to be a breakthrough season. It would have been negligent for the Vikings to cross their fingers on Hill, and it would have been ludicrous to pin their hopes on Heinicke's expected midseason return.

The Vikings could have shifted down and acquired a Josh McCown-level backup. But they were going to be leveraged into overpaying for any quarterback. If paying a premium, why not pay for the top available solution?

So in the end, that's how I view this trade. The Vikings got the best quarterback they could to alleviate a burning crisis as soon as they could. And as a bonus, Bradford could help bridge another potential crisis: the very real possibility that Bridgewater won't be ready to start the 2017 season.

Bradford has plenty of detractors, for good reason. And as it has been well chronicled, he has had trouble staying healthy. But a Bradford-Hill combination over 16 games at least gives the Vikings a fighting chance of competing on an NFL level. I'm not sure you could say that before Saturday.