michael.w got it first, my comments in italics.
DiCesare: Fitzpatrick shows qualities that are Peytonesque
OK, normally a headline is not fodder for me. I know that writers do not author the headlines, that is the job of someone else at the paper. [Ed's Note: the editor.] I do have some inside knowledge of the newspaper industry. However, reading this headline immediately reminded me of a joke Joel McHale told on "The Soup" in reference to some reality star signing a book deal. He said "In a related story, Random House Publishing paid a $4 million advance to a monkey who throws sh*t at a computer keyboard" Read further and you'll understand.
If only for a day there's reasonable cause to compare Ryan Fitzpatrick, a starting quarterback by default, with Peyton Manning, a star quarterback by birthright.
Being born Manning entitles you to be a starting quarterback. Like his sisters and his older brother Cooper. Yes he comes from NFL pedigree, but I think Peyton is a star quarterback because he has, you know, produced unhuman results over a long period of time in the NATIONAL!!!FOOTBALL!!!LEAGUE!!!
[Ed's Note: Somebody needs to direct Bob DiCesare to a dictionary in order for him to review the definition of "reasonable." A number of adjectives come to mind when thinking about comparing Ryan Fitzpatrick to Peyton Manning. Asinine. Crazy. Buckyperbole. Narcotic-induced. "Reasonable" and "accurate" aren't even at the bottom of that list, they're not on the list at all.]
If only on this certain any-given-Sunday
There it is in the first paragraph. The must have football cliche.
it was possible to assess Fitzpatrick's decisions and executions and conclude that Manning might have taken the same route given those same situations.
So I presume we are going to read about incredible decision making that Peyton Manning and only Peyton Manning (and now Ryan Fitzpatrick) could make.
Fitzpatrick's 31-yard bootleg around the right edge for a touchdown? Manning ran that play around the left side at The Ralph in November of 2001, scoring untouched from 33 yards out.
Uh-oh. By your logic, Fitzpatrick would have had to have gone around the left side. You said above that Manning would take the "same route" But Manning went left, Fitzpatrick went right.
The audible at the line that led to a 51-yard touchdown pass to Terrell Owens? That was taking what the defense offers, something Manning does to near perfection, especially with the game hanging in the balance.
OK, so two examples. And maybe it's just me, but I have yet to read about anything that is strictly something Peyton Manning would have done. I mean running out of the pocket when flushed, and audibling to a fly pattern do not seem like elite quarterback moves. I have to imagine even
Fitzpatrick resided in a realm with which we've been unfamiliar during Sunday's where-did- that-come-from? 31-14 rout of the Miami Dolphins at The Ralph. He threw for 246 yards, averaging better than 14 yards per completion. He rushed seven times for 50 yards, including the aforementioned touchdown jaunt.
246 passing yards. As a point of comparison, Peyton Manning is averaging almost 311 passing yards per game. In fact, a 246 yard would rank as Manning's third worst yardage performance this season. But, please, go on.
And although the Dolphins registered six sacks,
Manning has been sacked a total of 10 times THIS SEASON
Fitzpatrick kept them reasonably honest (or made them pay handsomely) on designed or improvised rollouts that bought him time and space.
Whereas Manning drops back and quickly releases the ball to the open receiver. Please, give me more.
"We were going to move the pocket a little bit, something we tried to do all year, especially with some new guys up front," Fitzpatrick said. "That's one of the things you can do just to sort of get some more easy dink-and-dunk passes in the game."
Just like Peyton Manning, who has dinked and dunked his way to a NATIONAL!!!FOOTBALL!!LEAGUE!! best 3,415 yards this season.
None of this is to say that the Harvard grad automatically qualifies as the Buffalo Bills quarterback of the future. But doubtless he's the quarterback of the present, the deserving starter, a cerebral sort who brings more to the line of scrimmage than Trent Edwards, the beleaguered player he's displaced.
And none of this is to say that Fitzpatrick is anywhere in the same stratosphere as the Tennessee grad, who qualifies as the quarterback of the decade.
"It's the experience," Owens said. "He's not a stranger to being back there at the quarterback position and he's recognizing defenses. He's putting us in situations for us to win whether it's run or pass, and the guys up front are giving him a little bit of time to kind of assess that and he's delivering the ball."
Abridged translation: T.O. likes Fitzpatrick better than the other guy, who's actually more experienced. Or at least he likes him more for now.
Unabridged question: What does this have to do with the Peyton Manning comparison?
[Ed's Note: Actual translation, "I like this quarterback better because he constantly throws me the ball, no matter how little I try to catch it."]
But Owens has a point. The Bills owed both their long touchdown plays to Fitzpatrick's field awareness and instinctual responses.
And poor defense and poor man to man coverage.
The second-quarter bootleg that launched him down the sideline unimpeded to tie the score 7-7 was impromptu decision-making.
Launched? Seriously, did you see how fast he was going? I wouldn't say launched. [Ed's Note: "Jogging" might be a stretch. What made me angry about that play as a Dolphins fan is that Fitzpatrick's wheels were so slow I probably could've run down from my seat in the 23rd row and caught before he hit the goal line. Which makes the actual defense's hustle on the play that much more pathetic.]
"It was a pass play," Fitzpatrick said. "Just with the coverage the way I got flushed, we really had the perfect route on because it moved everybody to the other side of the field and then there was an opening for me to take off."
The whole 31 yards?
This sounds a lot more like dumb luck than some brilliant Peyton Manning-eque decision making. Seriously, he just acknowledged the huge opening into which he could "launch" himself.
"Oh, man. I didn't think I was going to score," Fitzpatrick said. "I thought one guy was going to catch me. But I was huffing and puffing out there for sure. I haven't run that far in a long time."
Not forward, anyway.
Fitzpatrick has run backwards 31 yards during a game? Beautiful. Another thing Peyton Manning does on practically a weekly basis.
The bootleg was sweet, but the play that gives Fitzpatrick new street cred came with 2:31 left and Buffalo leading by three. The Bills of Dick Jauron would have been dead set on eating clock. The Bills of interim head coach Perry Fewell have different ideas on how to finish off a game. The QB eyed the coverage and audibled, sending both Owens and Lee Evans deep.
Yeah, a white guy named Fitzpatrick from Harvard throws a ball deep. That is definitely "street." I bet Fitzpatrick is rocking the gold teeth, drinking a forty and will be providing rhymes on Lil'Wayne's next album. After all, he threw a long touchdown pass.
[Ed's Note: This reminds me of a column in Sports Illustrated a few years back, offering commentary on the beanpot. When talking about Boston College's hockey team, the columnist noted "the names on the jerseys range from the Irish, to the Catholic, to the Irish-Catholic." A white guy named Fitzpatrick going to college in Massachusetts fits that bill to a T.]
"We preached all week long we want to be aggressive and take the shots when we can get them," Fitzpatrick said. "And that was just one of those plays where we had a chance to get the ball outside in one of our playmaker's hands and he was obviously very excited about it."
Fitzpatrick certainly earned street cred with all the slang he threw around in that quote. Are you sure that wasn't Snoop Dogg saying that?
"I think you have to tip your hat off to Ryan in that situation because he dissected and assessed the defense," Owens said. "They were kind of moving around a little bit and we felt like we had some opportunities that slipped early in the game and he missed a few. We wanted to be aggressive and it's his call and it's up to us to make the play."
You have to throw them to hit them, must take chances to reap rewards. Fitzpatrick's decisions that resulted in big touchdowns weren't gambles but calculated risks. He reacted to the situation, played swashbuckling football. If only for this one day he resided in Peyton's place.
So, in conclusion, Ryan Fitzpatrick is like Peyton Manning because he had a long touchdown run. And Peyton Manning did that once. Moreover, because Ryan Fitzpatrick threw a long touchdown pass to T.O. Great.
You know what else Ryan Fitzpatrick did? He threw an interception to Yeremiah Bell. Tom Brady did that in 2005, which you can see at the 0:52 second mark here. So Ryan Fitzpatrick is also like Tom Brady.
Steve Young threw a long touchdown pass to T.O., too. So Ryan Fitzpatrick is also like Hall of Famer Steve Young.
[Ed's Note: The comparisons do not stop there. Ryan Fitzpatrick also stood on the Bills sideline while the defense was on the field, which Jim Kelly also did. So Ryan Fitzpatrick is like Jim Kelly. Fitzpatrick threw an interception at Arrowhead Stadium, which Joe Montana also did. So Fitzpatrick is also Joe Montana.]
So there you have it folks. Ryan Fitzpatrick is Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Steve Young [Ed's Note: and Jim Kelly and Joe Montana] all rolled into one sure fire Hall of Fame, street cred-having quarterback. [Ed's Note: Based on these highly credible and accurate comparisons, Buffalo should lock up Fitzpatrick long term with lots of guaranteed money. The sad thing here, though, is they actually might.]
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