Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick and the New York Jets have been at an impasse since the season ended and no other team decided they wanted an 11-year veteran QB coming off a career year no one in their right mind would ever believe he could repeat.
For that reason the Jets offered Fitzpatrick a three-year contract extension with $12 million guaranteed this season. And they left it there, because Fitzpatrick has refused to sign it. All that was “leaked” by somebody Friday to the New York Post.
https://vine.co/v/ibdd37Xelit
Let’s make this perfectly clear, statistically Fitzpatrick was good for the Jets last season but not outstanding and not elite. He completed 59.6 percent of his passes which isn’t great. It’s barely better than Colin Kaepernick (59.0) and he got benched for Blaine Gabbert. Now, he wasn’t the only quarterback on a good team that had a completion percentage in the high 50s, but he doesn’t bring the other aspects of Cam Newton’s game (59.8) or, you know, didn’t win a Super Bowl like Peyton Manning (59.8).
And if I have to throw even more caveats in there, Peyton Manning was playing with an arm that barely functioned and a numb right hand. Newton had at his disposal arguably the worst wide receiver corps in the league. Fitzpatrick was throwing the ball to Brandon Marshall, one of the five best wideouts in the game, and Eric Decker, a damn good No. 2.
Fitzpatrick is a smart guy and had a tremendous career. He’s been a starter and high-quality back up since he entered the league as a seventh round draft choice of the then St. Louis Rams in 2005. He played well as a back up in his next stop with the Cincinnati Bengals when he had to step in after Carson Palmer went down with an injury. That led him to his next job with the Buffalo Bills, who he started for most of the next four seasons. He never led the Bills to better than a 6-10 record and actually led the NFL in interceptions in 2011.
The Ryan Fitzpatrick INT in the endzone to possibly end the #Jets season – https://t.co/6lvLoblu7P
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) January 3, 2016
Like Tim Hasselbeck, Matt Flynn, Chad Henne and Drew Stanton, Fitzpatrick is a high quality back-up quarterback. But unlike those guys he’s in a good situation where maybe he can ride out into the sunset as a starter with a few playoff appearances under his belt. With the talent an coaching the Jets put around him, they almost made it last year until Fitzpatrick himself threw three stupid interceptions in the fourth quarter of the final game of the season against the Bills to knock New York out of the playoffs.
The Jets want Fitzpatrick to stay as a guy they can win with now while preparing his replacement, whether it be Bryce Petty, who they drafted last season, or Christian Hackenberg, who they drafted this season.
A.J. Tarpley intercepts Ryan Fitzpatrick for the win! #NYJvsBUF https://t.co/QQEjsIUEAC
— NFL (@NFL) January 3, 2016
Fitzpatrick doesn’t like that and thinks he should be making $18 million like Brock Osweiler in Houston. Did he not see the film of those interceptions? Can he not click on his state page on NFL.com? The man went to Harvard for God’s sake. There’s no way he’s this dumb.
That’s a lot of money to leave sitting there for unrealistic pride and expectations. If 2016 Jets MVP IK Enemkpali didn’t break Geno Smith’s face in the preseason, Fitzpatrick may have never seen the field and the team would have never come close to double-digit wins.
Ryan Fitzpatrick finished 2015 as PFF's 30th-ranked QB (by overall grade); owned 4th-worst accuracy percentage. pic.twitter.com/dUJFh9Vslk
— PFF (@PFF) May 23, 2016
And here’s another thing to think about. I’m not one to hold the amount of money any athlete makes against him or her, but Fitzpatrick has been a journeyman back up and place holder QB his entire career and do you how much he’s made in that time? $39.066 million. He made $3.25 million alone with the Jets last year.
Make no mistake. Fitzpatrick has earned every penny and he’s absolutely worth $12 million to the Jets this season to keep their offense together. All Fitzpatrick has to do is go one step further, make the playoffs this time, and he’ll have no trouble making another $12 million again next year. And the next. He’s in complete control over how his career wraps up and it’s time he make the smart move and prove that Harvard diploma on his wall isn’t a waste of paper. Sign the contract. Get to work.
