I wanted to have a funny title for this blog, I really did, but the guy just lost his job. For that reason, I’ll keep the comedy and negativity in the body of this post.
From NBCSports: ’The Ryan Fitzpatrick era is over, and Buffalo needs a new quarterback. The Bills have announced that they cut Ryan Fitzpatrick today, on the first day of the new league year. Cutting Fitzpatrick isn’t a big surprise, considering that the Bills owed him a $3 million roster bonus if he was still on the team tomorrow, and that Bills G.M. Buddy Nix was surreptitiously taped talking about, among other things, his frustration that the quarterback was holding the team back.”
That Buddy Nix got duped into a taped conversation with the Bucs GM is another story, but for now let’s focus on what just happened in Orchard Park. The Bills just got rid of a quarterback they grossly overpaid after he had played six decent football games. They gave a guy who was a career backup a 6 year, $59 million dollar contract because of a few good games. This is what is wrong with the Buffalo Bills. Instead of doing it the way so many teams have done it by building through the draft and picking and choosing their free agents, the Bills have relied on shitty coaches and an even shittier group of quarterbacks. My hope is that all is now over.
I’ve been on record for a long time saying that Fitzpatrick wasn’t the guy. He never impressed me in any part of his game except for his toughness, and he needed that in Buffalo. He couldn’t throw a deep ball consistently, he was too predictable and at the end of the games he completely fell apart. Too many times I watched the Bills drive down the field only to watch Fitz throw the ball to the other team because it seemed he had already made his mind up where he was going to throw it. For times, the Bills offense was fun to watch, but too often the 3 year slant or endless variety of screens to our running backs left us with 3rd and 8′s. I’m sure it’s not all Fitzpatrick’s fault but when you sign a $59 million dollar contract, the blame will find you if your team sucks. And boy have the Bills sucked with him as their QB.
What now? Well the Bills have Tavaris Jackson as their only legit quarterback on the roster and by legit I mean he’s played before. They’ll probably draft a quarterback and bring in another veteran QB to have a battle royale. The truth is that new head coach Doug Marrone will want his own guy to build around and by “own guy,” he probably wants his starting QB from Syracuse, Ryan Nassib. I’m not against this as long as Nassib’s name isn’t called in the 1st round of next month’s draft.
I will say this, if Tavaris Jackson is our starting QB for week one this fall, there’s a really good chance I will hate my life. This was the right move by the Bills, but now they have to get it right with their next move.
P.S. Andy Levitre just signed a 6 year deal worth $48 million, so we need a left guard too…awesome.
