GREEN GHOSTING
Fitzpatrick 'scaring' Marshall by not returning WR's texts
Among the Jets’ concerns as their contract standoff with Ryan Fitzpatrick drags on is the quarterback losing connection and timing with the team’s wide receivers. With the team’s best receiver, the connection already has hit a snag before training camp even begins.
A worried Brandon Marshall said his good pal Fitzpatrick hasn’t been returning his texts, perhaps further icing the freeze between the Jets and the quarterback who threw for 31 touchdowns in green last year.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Marshall said on actor Michael Rapaport’s “I AM RAPAPORT” podcast in an episode released Monday. “Me and Fitz talk like every day, all the time. But to be honest, I texted this dude the last two weeks three times, and there’s no response.”
Fitzpatrick and Marshall struck up a friendship last year as the 32-year-old receiver racked up 1,502 yards and a career-high 14 touchdowns. Despite his free agency, Fitzpatrick’s return to the Jets seemed an inevitability, but an offer of three years and $24 million, with $12 million in the first year, has been on the table for months, with the team seeking a discount in the later years and Fitzpatrick, 33, unwilling to bite.
Marshall and fellow star wideout Eric Decker stayed away from the team’s voluntary OTAs in May, which many perceived as protests over the Jets’ treatment of Fitzpatrick. Now Marshall’s phone isn’t ringing, and he’s digging for reasons for why he’s being ghosted.
“The only thing that he can tell me right now to make it right is, ‘Hey, bro, I was out of the country’ or ‘I was on vacation.’ ” Marshall said. “It’s scaring me right now. It’s scaring me that my guy hasn’t texted me back when we FaceT ime, we text, we call, all the time.
“We’ll see what happens, but it’s scary right now.”
Right now Geno Smith is the fill-in starter who’s been building a rapport with the Jets’ receivers through various offseason minicamps. Coach Todd Bowles said this spring he would want his starting quarterback with the team by training camp, which begins July 27. The preseason opener is Aug. 11, and the season begins a month later.
The longer Fitzpatrick and the Jets play this game of chicken, the less likely he is to be the Week 1 starter — or on the team at all. Fitzpatrick’s leverage is his teammates’ support and the possibility another team, maybe with an injured quarterback, gives him a call. The Jets see an aging quarterback coming off a career year without any better offer available. Marshall sees a phone not buzzing and his worries growing.