Former QB Young throws criticism at Bucs’ Fitzpatrick
TAMPA — Former NFL quarterback Vince Young, out of the league since 2011 and complaining about not getting more opportunities to prolong his career, took a shot at new Bucs backup Ryan Fitzpatrick in a story posted at SI.com.
“I’d see a quarterback and be like, ‘Dude is garbage, and I’m over here in the kitchen cooking turkey necks!?’ ” Young told the site. “I hate to namedrop, but Fitzpatrick is still playing!? He leads the league in interceptions, and he’s still [expletive] getting paid? I mean, what the [expletive] is going on?”
Young, 34, was cut by the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders last week in a comeback attempt — since his last NFL action in 2011, he was cut by the Eagles and Bills in 2012, the Packers in 2013 and the Browns in 2014.
Fitzpatrick, also 34, takes his share of criticism with 133 career interceptions in 12 NFL seasons, but he’s only led the NFL in picks once — in 2011, when he had 23, against 24 touchdown passes while with the Bills. Even then, his quarterback rating was 79.1, while Young’s was 60.1 with the Eagles the same season, throwing four touchdown passes against nine interceptions in limited playing time. Fitzpatrick has a higher career QB rating (79.7) than Young (74.4).
The two quarterbacks came into the league from opposite perspectives — Young, a Heisman Trophy winner at Texas, was the No. 3 overall pick in 2006 and earned $58 million on his rookie contract; Fitzpatrick was a seventhround pick out of Harvard who threw passes in four games in his first three seasons before becoming a starter.
The Bucs are paying Fitzpatrick considerably less than other teams have recently — he’s getting $3 million on a one-year contract to be Jameis Winston’s backup, this after earning $12 million last year with the Jets. Bucs coach Dirk Koetter said during the team’s mandatory minicamp two weeks ago that he’s already learned from the experience that Fitzpatrick brings to the Bucs’ quarterback room.
“It’s a great relationship. I’ve learned a lot,” Koetter said. “Just the way he processes and the way he sees things. He’s helped me tremendously. He’s helped all of the quarterbacks in that quarterback room tremendously by the way he sees things.”