Ryan Fitzpatrick – December 18, 2019
Download PDF version
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Head Coach Brian Flores
(Are you going to be able to spend any of Christmas with your family? Are they coming in?) – “Yeah, I’ll be able to spend Christmas with the family.”
(What’s it like in the Fitzpatrick home?) – “Craziness. It’s awesome. It lasts all day and the kids are psyched, and there’s plenty of breaks in between; but yeah, it really is the whole month leading up to it. Just the excitement is a lot of fun in our household and Santa spoils them rotten.”
(Does everybody open their presents all at once or is it one at a time?) – “No, no, no. We’re a big one-at-a-time family. I think we go oldest to youngest.”
(So it really does take all day?) – “God, it takes all day. It just keeps getting longer and longer, but that’s okay.”
(During your career you’ve had games where you’ve thrown four touchdown passes. You’ve had games where you’ve thrown four interceptions…) – “Six. Six and six.”
(You haven’t done that this year. Why? Why do you think you’ve been more consistent?) – “I think I’ve definitely tried to play within myself. I think I’ve tried to give this team stability, and I think that’s kind of what we needed and need; so I haven’t had some of those off-the-wall, crazy good games or bad games because I’m trying to be as consistent as I can and just making sure that I’m making the right decisions. We’ve had some good games and some bad games. They just haven’t been as high and as low as maybe I have historically.”
(When you signed a two-year deal here, was it in mind for that 2020 year coming into fruition?) – “You never know. You never know how things are going to work out. Every time you sign a contract, I guess you’re ready for the duration of the contract, and sometimes you get cut and that gets cut short. Sometimes you get extended. Sometimes you just play through it, and I’ve kind of done it every which-way. Those things, the contracts at least for me and historically throughout my career, they sometimes don’t mean a whole lot.”
(Was the hit you took against the Eagles the hardest you’ve taken this year?) – “The Eagles hit?”
(I’m sorry. The Giants. I apologize.) – “Oh, okay. I was going to say, you’re testing me right now.”
(I’m a few weeks off.) – “I think that one might have looked the worst. That wasn’t the one that felt the worst, but in terms of just unexpected – like I don’t know why I didn’t expect him to hit me like that, but I don’t think he expected me to turn back into him. But yeah, that was a pretty good one. It made a pretty loud pop.”
(You mentioned the stability part of the season and how important it was for this team. Is there a little bit of gunslinger in you that’s kind of missing that part of the action?) – “I still really enjoy running around and throwing the ball around and all that. I think I’ve done plenty of that this year. I think I’ve tried to tone down the crazy a little bit, and part of it for me, too, is also getting older and knowing that sometimes earlier in my career when we were down a few touchdowns, still believing that there was a 21-point throw that existed in the NFL. (laughter) I’ve learned some of that stuff as well as I’ve gotten older.”
(I know you mentioned early in the year that the main reason you came here was to play. Can you foresee a situation where you would come back if you weren’t in a position to play?) – “That’s something we can address probably at a later date, but I’m excited to be out there on Sunday.”
(The Pro Bowl teams were announced last night. WR DeVante Parker was not one of the four AFC receivers. Thoughts on that? Do you think he deserves be in?) – “I think it’s difficult to make the Pro Bowl. Especially at receiver, it’s very difficult. There’s so much talent out there. DeVante has definitely made a late surge as the season has gone on. He’s gotten better and better as the year has gone on, so I don’t know that that played in his favor at all; but we’re really happy that he’s on our team. I’m really happy I get to throw the ball to him, and I think he knows that based on being rewarded with a contract and just the way that we all feel about him in this building. Those things are great – Pro Bowls and all of the individual stuff – but I know he just wants to get this thing moving in the right direction and I think he’s been a great player for us this year.”
(There’s been a lot of calls for QB Josh Rosen throughout the year and even this week. I want to know how much you’ve heard that and what you think about Head Coach Brian Flores’ decision to stick with you despite all of that?) – “That part of it is out of my control. I just like to play. I’m happy he made the decision he made just to continue to have me go out there. I’ve tried to be consistent and tried to be the best version of myself each and every week. Again, I’m happy to be out there on Sunday. I’m looking forward to it. The other stuff, I can’t really think about or worry about. Just based on what he says, I go and do.”
(You said you’ve been in a lot of these rooms throughout your career where a young guy, old guy, all the different things. What do you think about the idea that you’ve got to see somebody’s potential before they make a rule upon them?) – “I just think quarterback’s a very difficult position to play, and I know everybody thinks the solution is to throw somebody out there on the field, and that’s the only way you can learn; but I know just throughout my career and watching different guys and even personally, there’s a lot of different things that you can learn about being a quarterback that don’t necessarily have to happen on the field on Sunday. I think whatever role you’re in, to be able to soak all that up as best you can and to keep taking little tidbits, whether it’s during a game on Sunday or throughout the week in preparation, you can continue to get better. I’m 15 years in and still trying to figure out, but I continue to try to work hard and try to take little things that I’ll either see from somebody else or just kind of pick up as I’m out there or rely on things I’ve seen guys do in the past. I think you can constantly learn no matter what setting or environment you’re in.”
(Do you think that leadership and teammates playing for a guy, for the quarterback, is inbred innate or can that be learned?) – “I think a lot of it is innate. I think it has to be genuine. Can you learn how to become a better leader? Yes. But if it’s not genuine, if it comes across as phony, if it comes across as rehearsed, then everyone in the locker room – we’re all grown men and interact with each other every day so it has to be genuine. It has to come from the right place. A lot of it is organic. It’s not ‘These are the three steps to leadership.’ ‘Okay, I’m going to follow that and become a better leader.’ There are things certainly that I’ve learned throughout my career that have helped me a lot and watching different guys, but I think a lot of it is innate.”
(We see I guess the finished version, or maybe you’d say not the finished version but the finished version of you as a leader and what you’re able to do on the field. Do you remember when you were starting to show those signs?) – “I think with me, throughout my career, a lot of it has been confidence. Just as soon as I figured out or convinced myself that I belonged, that I belonged in that huddle, that I belonged on the field, that I belonged in this league, that was like the final hurdle I kind of had to get over in order to release myself or be the version of myself that people wanted to follow. That confidence that I might not have necessarily had from being a seventh-round pick and scraping by to try to make the team every year, once I convinced myself that I belonged and that I was a starter in this league, I think that went a long way for me in terms of my confidence and the way that I carried myself.”
(Who is somebody that you would have fallen over the cliff?) – “Carson Palmer is one of the – I would say he’s one of the more unbelievable quarterbacks I’ve been around in terms of leadership. A lot of it with him – I mean Heisman winner, No. 1 pick – was humility. It was the fact that he was just one of the guys and he didn’t think he was better than anybody else. I think for a quarterback, toughness goes a long way too. He was tough as can be. So that was a guy that when I was young, I looked at. I revered (him). I thought this is the kind of guy that I want to be; this is the way I want to be looked at by the linemen, by whoever it was. I think that carried with him throughout his career. That was something that was natural for him, just kind of the guy that he is.”
(That ‘one of the guys’ aspect is really interesting because guys have said that about you all season. They feel like you’re one of the guys. At quarterback, it seems like that’s more of an outlier position where you have a lot of other stuff to focus on. How do you make that a prime focus to be one of the guys despite having more on your plate than maybe another position does?) – “I think it’s different for everyone and everybody has different things pulling at them off the field. I just think simple things like sitting in the meal room and eating lunch with guys and getting to know guys, something as simple and as silly as that goes such a long way. In my mind, I’m not like ‘Oh, I’m going to sit with Dan Kilgore today because I want him to block better for me.’ That’s not it. I think a lot of it is understanding that you’re part of a team and understanding that no one position is better than any other, that we’re all important and we all have to work together, and it’s such a great team sport to get on the same page to succeed. I think knowing guys personally and getting to know them on that level goes a long way towards chemistry and transferring it onto the field. That’s something I’ve just always placed an importance on.”
