Ryan Fitzpatrick – September 22, 2020
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Tuesday, September 22, 2020
QB Ryan Fitzpatrick
(This week is going to be one of the best NFL quarterback matchups in the league, and I’m not talking about QB Lamar Jackson and QB Patrick Mahomes. What are your thoughts on QB Gardner Minshew and what are your thoughts on going up in prime time against him?) – “I haven’t seen him play a ton but the few times I have, I like watching him. I enjoy his playing style. It looks like he’s out there having fun. It’s not easy to play quarterback in this league. It’s not easy to play as a young quarterback. He’s already had a lot of success. He’s had a great start to the season. He’s a guy that I don’t think I’ve played against him, so I’m excited to watch him play and see how he does.”
(I’m not sure if you saw the game last night – probably not, especially with the short week – but QB Drew Brees’ arm was trending on Twitter. Supposedly he can’t throw the ball beyond 10 yards. I guess I’m wondering, what have you heard about arm and how important it is and how strong your arm is. Certainly your arm looked strong enough in last week’s game.) – “Oh, thanks. (laughter) Yeah, I think some of that stuff is a little overrated. I didn’t see a lot of the game last night but the system they’re in is so much about rhythm and getting it out and getting it to their guys in space. I think a lot of times too much can be made about that. There aren’t a whole lot of times, unless it’s an Aaron Rodgers Hail Mary, that you’re seeing a ball go over 60 yards in a game. For me, and I think for all quarterbacks as you get older, just knowing what you’re good at and what you’re not, and sticking to that stuff. I think a lot of that stuff gets overrated, especially as guys get older.”
(I wanted to ask you about the identity of this offense. I know you guys are still trying to figure it out but nobody knows Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey’s offense more than you, even coaches that have worked with him. You’ve been a starter, this is going on your sixth year with him. What is it supposed to look like?) – “I think it’s supposed to be an offense that changes every week but an offense that tailors to our strengths. For example, when I was in New York with Chan, you could look at the stats of the tight ends and how many catches they had but I don’t think any of them had 100 yards even in a season. We’ve got different skillsets and different guys here that we want to try to get involved, whether it’s the big guys on the outside, whether it’s our quick guys on the inside – Isaiah Ford had a great game last week – or continuing to get involved the running backs more involved. I just think as we’re going here, he’s going to continue to figure out what’s going to make us a good offense, a dynamic offense, and we’ll keep feeding those parts. I think part of the charm in his offense is how multiple it is and the ability for it to look different from week to week.”
(I’ve got a two-part QB Gardner Minshew question. Part I is that you and him kind of had similar starts. Late-round draft picks, had to overcome incumbents to get to your spot. What advice would you give to him starting out in his career, to have the kind of longevity that you did? And Part II of the question is why are beards better than mustaches?) – “(laughter) I think part of it – our careers are different in the sense that I played early but didn’t have a whole lot of success and bounced around a bunch. He’s certainly had a lot more success early on than I did, so he seems to have some things already figured out. But just the continued hard work and the continued passion for the game. Those are two things that if you have a little bit of success, you just can’t lose sight of (them). The mustache versus the beard, I think the beard is a cooler look. I think guys that grow mustaches a lot of times have patchy sides for their beards, so they just stick with the mustache. My wife appreciates the mustache trimmed up a little bit more. But she does hate the beard too, so I guess that’s a lose-lose for me.”
(I have a question for you that I’m sure is something you’ve seen on film, but I read some stats earlier in my research on this game. Jacksonville sends an extra rusher at the seventh-lowest rate in the NFL and they have two linebackers in LB Joe Schobert and LB Myles Jack who have played a combined 270 snaps and only 13 combined pass-rush snaps between the two. So my question is what’s the difference between playing a team that dials up pressure relentlessly versus a team that plays more coverage-based?) – “Well, for me as a quarterback, you look at some of that stuff and you look at tendencies, but if they do blitz then we need to have an answer for it. I can’t sit here and rely on those things. We’ve got to have answers for everything. But a part of it is when you go into a game, are these guys generating pressures and hurries and how do they do it? Do they rush four? Do they bring exotics? There are a lot of different ways to do it. With so little film, we can look at years past and things that have happened, but you kind of have to be ready for everything. We just continue to look at matchups, we continue to look at what they want to do with those guys, just like us trying to put our guys in good positions to make plays. But it definitely is going to be a matchup game like it always is. We’ll try to, as best we can, get our guys on the guys that we want to get them on and try to create those good matchups.”
(Is there any overreaction do you think to the Week 2 performance? If you guys don’t stall out at the 1-yard line or if LB Kyle Van Noy gets a pick-six if he doesn’t drop that – if you make a couple of plays here and there, you guys maybe win that game. Is there some overreaction to everything? Do you guys think you guys are close to getting a win here?) – “I think when you lose in the NFL, I think every week is an overreaction. It goes the other way too. If you win a couple of games, all of a sudden everything’s fixed and that’s not always the case either. I think a lot of it is we have such a young team and Jacksonville does too; but it’s just about staying levelheaded. It’s about putting the week before behind you and focusing on what’s at hand. I think we’ve done a nice job of that. I was proud of the way that we came out after a really disappointing game in New England, and showed some better focus, resiliency or whatever it was in the second game. We’ll just continue to try to build on that. Short weeks are tough for everybody – physically, especially; but the mental aspect too. We’ll get into that. We’ve got only a few days to get into our preparation. Hopefully that will help in terms of the focus this week.”
(Did I hear you correctly or maybe it was a Zoom interpretation – did you say your wife hates the beard?) – “(laughter) You’d have to ask her. You can catch her on the streets. She’s running the streets all the time. If you ever see her out there, you can ask her. (laughter)”
(What has she said to you though?) – “It just depends on what mood she’s in.”
(That’s a non-committal answer?) – “(laughter). No, she hates when it’s long like this. She hates when it’s long because for some reason she thinks I’m handsome, but when it’s long, I’m not handsome.”
(When you’re quarterbacking a team and the defense has been giving up some yards and giving up some points, do you press a little bit? Do you know that maybe the margin for error is a lot smaller for us on the offensive side? And if so, how do you not overreact?) – “No, definitely not. I have to put so much focus and energy into each individual play. For us, there’s so much that we’re just missing on or there are some mistakes that I’m making that are just going to make us that much better on offense. There are a million things we’re focused on trying to get better and fixed right now as an offense. I know the defense is doing that as well. For me, our goal is to go out and score on every drive and if we don’t do that, we’ve got to figure out why we’re not doing that and try to correct it. There’s just too much that I have to focus on where you don’t even really think about some of that. Once you get into a second half of a game, then the score definitely becomes much more of an issue, whether you’re winning or losing and how you’re playing; but as the game goes on, especially early, you play and try to execute the best you can.”
