Ryan Fitzpatrick – November 20, 2019
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Wednesday, November 20, 2019
QB Ryan Fitzpatrick
(What do you believe is the ideal starting time for a good dinner?) – “(laughter) For me, it’s difficult because it’s get dictated by sports a little bit. If sports were out of the equation, I would be a 6 p.m. on-the-dot…”
(Early.) – “What do you mean early? (laughter) 4:30 sometimes. Depends on what’s in the Crock Pot that day.”
(How are you even hungry at that hour?) – “Sometimes you’re not. You’ve just got to force that third meal down.”
(Do seven sacks make you rethink your career?) – “No, I’ve been hit plenty.”
(You’ve actually only had one game where you’ve had more sacks. I was surprised to see that.) – “Yeah, but sometimes getting sacked doesn’t hurt as much as some of the other ones. It’s just one of those things – we went back, looked at the film and just like we had talked about, there’s a number of things that happen there. It’s not just one quick solution or one group. There are a lot of things I think I can solve whether pre- or post-snap and getting the ball out, so I’m going to control the things that I can control in that area and try to get better and take some pressure off those guys.”
(Has the fact that Head Coach Brian Flores is trying to win, that you’re starting, that the goal is to succeed – despite everything else that gets suggested and said and done – does that raise his respect level in the locker room?) – “The answer to the very long, complicated question – because there’s a lot of things that go into that – is yes. It does. I think – and I think one of the things you pointed to is me being out there – I just think that decision is made knowing that we’re trying to win football games. Not to say that the other guy isn’t as good or whatever it is, but if you look at a really old crusty guy and a young guy that everyone wants to see; for me to be out there, that means we’re trying to win football games and that definitely resonates throughout the team.”
(Did you, at any point, wonder if it was going to go the other way because of that? Because one guy is younger with upside and the other guy is towards the end?) – “I mean I’ve been – towards the end? What are you talking about, ‘towards the end?’ (laughter) I’ve got one foot in the grave. (laughter) I’ve seen it every which-way, but just continue truly to focus one week at a time and put everything I have in the next opponent. That’s kind of what I have learned over the years, the best way to do it, and that’s the way I approach it.”
(So what you’re saying is you want to play next year?) – “(laughter) Don’t be twisting my words.”
(A little bit of – this may come at your expense – but is there any part of you that kind of wants to see what QB Josh Rosen can do if he gets back out there?) – “I mean, I want to play. I’ve developed a good relationship with Josh and there’s a lot of things I think that, as a quarterback, whether you’re playing or sitting back and observing, there’s a lot of ways and things that you can learn; but selfishly, I want to be out there playing.”
(RB Kalen Ballage is the starter, but he’s averaging less than 2 yards per carry. What have you said, what do you want him to know – I’m sure you’ve tried to help in some way?) – “I think – not just with Kalen but with a lot of guys and even me throughout my career – confidence is such a big thing, and sometimes it just takes one big run or a big catch. Some of the stuff that Kalen did last week in pass protection was so valuable to what we were trying to accomplish and something that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet, so there are a lot of ways that he helps us; but we’ve got to get him going a little better. There are different ways to do that, but I think confidence is a huge thing and I think with everybody – especially just being a young team – that’s what you continue to stress. When you don’t think about all the things that could go wrong and all the different things in a play and just go out there confident and play football like you have since you were a kid, a lot of times it works out for the better.”
(Kind of in the same vein – do you need to get WR Albert Wilson more involved in this offense, and if so, how?) – “I think with obviously Preston’s (Williams) injury a couple weeks ago, just relying on different guys now. (There are) more balls to go around. We talked about that. I missed him a couple times in this last game where had an opportunity to have a couple catch-and-runs. The great thing about this offense is the ball’s going to get spread around. Everybody’s going to get their opportunities. It’s just a matter of me doing a nice job picking and choosing who gets the opportunity and when and then those guys taking advantage of it; so not necessarily going to force it to one guy because he doesn’t have enough touches, but we’ll try to spread it out and just continue to be confident in all those guys.”
(What do you see in the Browns defense?) – “It’ll look a little bit different, obviously with a couple of the suspensions and (Morgan) Burnett with the Achilles injury, so there will be some moving parts and pieces that we’ll have to figure out a little bit on Sunday in terms of who will be out there. They’ve been really productive all year and just like every week, for us the focus is really going to be on us and improving and getting better and taking care of some of the little things that we had been doing a better job at that all of a sudden last week, they crept up on us again. We’ve got a lot of things just in-house that we can fix as an offense that we’re focusing on this week.”
(How are you feeling after last week’s game and I guess as a whole, how have you kind of kept your body in the shape you need to be playing every week?) – “I feel good. Nobody’s going to write a book about my training regiment or my diet (laughter) – I know that – but I was talking to Lorenzo Alexander, a 15-year guy as well, before the game. There’s just some years for whatever reason you get bumps and bruises and stuff lingers all year-long, and then there’s other years where you’re getting hit a bunch, but nothing really lingers and that’s kind of where I’m at right now. I feel really good body-wise and everything else and just having – I’ve kind of been lucky this year in that regard because I don’t know if there’s a rhyme or reason to it, but right now I’m as healthy as can be.”
(Are you confident you’ll be able to finish the season here, playing each game?) – “Yeah, I feel as good right now as I did – I was going to say Day 1 of the offseason, (laughter) but maybe like, a few weeks into the offseason when I got back into shape. I feel really good right now.”
(In Year 15, can you still make all the same throws you made in Year 1? Is your arm the same?) – “Yeah, and I never – my whole (career) – I never had to rely on, or never had a big arm, so there’s a lot of different things that I do either to counteract that or just the way that I play and knowing my limitations and my strengths. But yeah, my arm is as strong, if not stronger now than it’s probably ever been. That’s not saying much – probably still puts me in the bottom half in the league.”
(You do put your entire body into it at times, I see.) – “I have to. (laughter)”
(The team made a bunch of roster moves again today. What has it been like for you to see so many players come and go all season-long?) – “It’s been a unique year and that comes up sometimes with injuries and other things, but there’s been a lot of kind of churning on the bottom of the roster and just a lot of turnover…”
(Starters, too.) – “You just, you try to make the best out of it. I think some of it is you find the guys that you can rely on and lean on those guys a little bit, and other guys, you’ve got to try to get up to speed and they’ve got to get it figured out or there’ll be another guy in the next week. There’s a lot of those things that we don’t control as players. We just go out there and play. That’s kind of how we have to approach it.”
(As a QB, are you cognizant of touches – what other guys may have in-game?) – “I mean, yes and no. It depends on – like when I was playing with Brandon Marshall, I didn’t have to be cognizant of it because he always let me know. (laughter) You know Brandon. It depends and you’ll go into – we go into games liking matchups and wanting to exploit matchups or get guys touches and balls, so sometimes we’ll feel like we’re a little light in one category – not attacking what we wanted to attack and go there, but a lot of times – again, in this offense, we’re going to spread the ball around a lot to different guys. Everybody – you saw Patrick Laird who really stepped up big at the end of the game last week, he got thrown in there and all of a sudden gets five, six catches or whatever it was. You never really know when your number is going to get called, but if you do well, usually your number will get called again.”
