Oft-traveled Fitzpatrick has a history of squaring accounts with past teams
On behalf of the Texans last season, quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick went 3-0 against two of his former teams, Buffalo and Tennessee.
It’s not that he’s vindictive or anything, but the Harvard man with the bushy beard of a Civil War general admits “being cut or sent away definitely matters to me a little bit.”
If so, the Texans should be worried when the New York Jets visit NRG Stadium on Sunday. In his second start for the Texans, Fitzpatrick helped beat the Buffalo Bills 31-10. In a second victory over the Tennessee Titans, he threw six touchdown passes — two more than in any game over his previous nine NFL seasons.
The Texans didn’t cut Fitzpatrick, but they sent him away, trading him to the Jets for a conditional sixth- or seventh-round draft pick in 2016. Texans coach Bill O’Brien was moving on to Brian Hoyer, whom he’d just acquired as a Cleveland Browns castoff, or Ryan Mallett, both former New England Patriots who O’Brien believed were better fits in his Patriots-derived offensive scheme.
Now, Mallett is long gone and Hoyer is caught in concussion protocol.
Fitzpatrick, though, landed firmly on his feet. Reunited schematically with his coach from Buffalo, Chan Gailey, he wound up becoming the Jets’ starter when Geno Smith was sucker-punched onto the injured list in a preseason dustup with then-teammate IK Enemkpali. Since then, Fitzpatrick has refused to give Smith any opening to reclaim the job.
Never mind that Fitzpatrick will start against the Texans nine days removed from surgery to repair a torn ligament in his thumb.
But so what. It was only his left one. Fitzpatrick, 32, insists the pain is manageable and the training staff will have the hand swaddled in “layers and layers” of protection. Nobody has a better understanding of what “carpe diem” means than he does. Opportunities lost might not be refound. He will play.
“I’ve hit Fitz many times in my career, and he’s always popped right back up,” Texans defensive end J.J. Watt said. “He’s a great guy and a great competitor. I’ve always had so much respect for him, starting with when he was in Buffalo, because of the way he goes out there and competes, the way he takes licks and just keeps getting back up.”
Kudos from Texans
That applies to what happens on the field and in his long and winding football career.
The Jets are Fitzpatrick’s sixth team. He has been, at one point or another, the established starter for five of them. He never won the job in St. Louis, his initial stop, but he did beat the Texans
in 2005 as an undrafted rookie free agent, coming off the bench in the second half of his NFL debut at the then-Reliant Stadium and blistering them for 310 yards and three touchdowns.
Texans cornerback Johnathan Joseph has been Fitzpatrick’s teammate as a Cincinnati Bengal and a Texan. The first word that comes to mind when Joseph is asked to describe him is “tough,” with “smart” following close behind. O’Brien called Fitzpatrick “an awesome guy to coach.”
Of course, it was also O’Brien who benched him in favor of Mallett last season, only to be forced to reverse course when it was learned Mallett had a torn pectoral muscle he had kept hidden from the coaches and training staff before he stunk up the stadium in a bad loss to the Bengals.
Fitzpatrick’s next start would be the game in which he embarrassed Tennessee with that barrage of touchdown passes. But, sadly, his season didn’t end happily when he suffered a broken fibula in the 14th game while trying to make something out of nothing against the Indianapolis Colts.
“I got to know him real well two offseasons ago when we were both here,” said T.J. Yates, who will be the Texans’ starter opposite
Fitzpatrick in light of Hoyer’s dinged state. “I learned a lot from him. He’s a very smart quarterback.
“He’s not the biggest guy (and he) doesn’t have the biggest arm, but he shows that if you’re a competitor, if you’re accurate (and) if you’re smart, you can play for a long time in this league.”
No burned bridges
Some might question Yates’ assessment of Fitzpatrick’s accuracy.
Although he’s a career 60 percent passer (59.7 as a Jet in 2015), he has thrown interceptions 3.4 percent of the time. Aaron Rodgers’ and Tom Brady’s corresponding frequencies are 1.7 and 1.6 percent, respectively.
But his current coach, Todd Bowles, has no quarrel with how Fitzpatrick (6-2, 223) is protecting the football. Moreover, he’s protecting himself, the stitches in his thumb notwithstanding.
“He’s at a place in his career, and I think everybody gets there, where he’s comfortable with himself and he’s not trying to win the game by himself,” Bowles said. “He commands the offense and always gets us in the right play. He’s gritty. He will run the ball when he has to, but he doesn’t just take off and run. He hasn’t
surprised me. Ryan is a competitor, and he understands the game. We knew the things he could do.
“He was brought in to be the backup, but we knew he could play. He wasn’t just a backup quarterback. We knew we had a ‘1A’ and a ‘1B.’ And when the incident happened to Geno, he did seize the moment. He’s played well.”
Fitzpatrick concedes each chapter of his career has provided experiences from which he has grown. He has only good things to say about his brief Texans tenure, no matter how disappointed he might have been by how it ended.
“I think coach O’Brien and (offensive coordinator George) Godsey do a great job there,” he said. “I learned a lot from them, just thinking about football in a different way and relating to those guys with their offense. In that regard, it was a great year for me, just in terms of understanding football and taking the next step.”
Asked if he was surprised by being traded to the Jets, Fitzpatrick said: “I mean, there was uncertainty. I don’t think anything surprises me anymore. But it happened. That’s what they decided to do. I’m a Jet now and had to move on.”