Jets Hit Fitzpatrick With A 7pm Deadline...Fitz Arrives At The Last Second And Agrees To A 1 Year, $12 Million Deal
The saga is finally over. It lasted WAY longer than it should have. From day 1 every reasonable person assumed this deal would eventually get done one way or the other. And it dragged on long enough that for a minute there I really thought that they wouldnt figure it out. Tonight the game of chicken between both sides escalated to some Threat Level Midnight shit. Mikey Macc hit him with that COCKY 7pm take it or leave it deadline and Fitz waited until the last possible second until he caved. Cocky moves all around – the Jets for finally saying enough is enough and Fitz for making them sweat it out exactly until 7pm. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the Jets offices waiting anxiously to see if Fitz arrived or not. I’m sure that was a real friendly meeting when he finally did show up…for sure not.
In the end, cooler heads prevailed AKA Ryan Fitzpatrick over played his hand and finally realized it. It ends up being a reasonable salary with performance based incentives like everyone said was the answer from day 1.
A one year deal isnt ideal. Fast foward about 8 months and we’re going to be right back in the same boat. But this deal does 2 things: 1) Avoids any long term cap complications. Ryan Fitzpatrick is not the long term solution under center for the Jets and hes not the type of player worth mortgaging your future and/or your financial flexibility. 2) Barring injury, this means we wont be seeing Geno Smith. Jets fans are so battered and tortured and delusional that theres actually a sect of us out there that drank the Geno Smith Kool Aid. There’s actually Jets fans out there convinced he could be the franchise QB the Jets have been looking for. Which is absolutely fucking LAUGHABLE. So, those idiots are actually upset tonight but the rest of us with a brain are simply happy we can watch Jets football this season without having to watch him play.
I have this Mets/Jets pessimistic knot in my stomach that Fitzy is RA Dickey and last year was his Cy Young season. Part of me thinks we might be getting that Fitztragic side of things this season. But there’s that other side of me that says the offense is even further improved and a second season of Fitz/Decker/Marshall clicking could mean that 31 TD season can be replicated. We all know that first half schedule is a monster and theres plenty to be concerned about but if Fitzy can do what he did last year and I dunno, perhaps, maybe, not completely shit the bed when everything is on the line, we’re in business.
The important thing is that coming into this season Mo and Fitz were two huge question marks and at times it seemed financially impossible to bring back both and Mikey Macc got the job done. Mo locked up long term, Fitz on that one year deal with financial motivation and personal motivation to prove he wasnt a 1 year fluke. Things went from dark and boring to a very pleasant surprise and exciting. But now its time to get to fucking work. A lot of time has been wasted. A lot of drama looming over the team. We’re cutting it pretty damn close if you’re a team that wants to contend. So the contract is signed, the deal is done, time to play football.