Denver Broncos: Why Ryan Fitzpatrick should be their guy
By John Laird
Ryan Fitzpatrick is currently a free agent looking for a substantial amount of money from anyone who is willing to pay it. If he brings his asking price down, the Harvard product could be the perfect fit for Garry Kubiak’s offensive scheme on the Denver Broncos.
First off, I will start by saying no team in the NFL should pay Ryan Fitzpatrick anything close to $15 million a year. He just isn’t worth the money, nor is he a long term solution being that he is 33 years old.
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What I will say is that Elway should be calling Fitzpatrick just about every single day, begging for him to drop his price, and he should listen. The Broncos are currently desperate for a signal=caller with the retirement of Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler taking the money and running away to Houston with it.
The 11-year pro can come in and help this team pick up where it left off. He is a natural leader just by the way he plays the game. Fitzpatrick is as physical as it gets for a quarterback, and the Broncos are a team that thrives off of physicality and toughness, just like how they won the Super Bowl.
Fitzpatrick is coming off of a career year with the New York Jets, posting career highs in passing yards (3,905) and touchdowns (31). He didn’t do it alone, however. He had the privilege of throwing to some talented players in the likes of Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker. Not to mention he was handing the ball off to Chris Ivory, who had a Pro-Bowl season.
In Denver, Fitzpatrick would have a similar supporting cast. He would have two great pass catchers in Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders, while handing the ball off to their physical running back in C.J. Anderson.
Gary Kubiak could revert to his offense similar to what he had in his time in Houston. Running plenty of deep play action passes off of the stretch play. Something that could tailor very well with Fitzpatrick’s cannon of an arm.
Along with that, he has the security blanket of a great defense. Which makes everyone on the offense’s job easier.
With the Broncos, Fitzpatrick will not be asked to carry the entire offense, similar to what Peyton had the luxury of having in his final season. Everybody knows the minute you ask him to do too much, he will start to pile up the interceptions. Think of him as a poor man’s Brett Favre.
The Broncos are a team that is ready for another play-off run, and shouldn’t be looking to have a rookie quarterback take control of that. A veteran at the position who has seen all the blitzes, coverages, schemes you can think of and can call them out to make the rest of the offense play more loose would be ideal.
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Why change your entire offense for a non-proven Colin Kaepernick? You never know what you’re going to get with him and he isn’t as consistent as you want from within the pocket. Don’t fix something that doesn’t need to be fixed. Be that smash mouth team with an aggressive, top tier defense backing you up.
For the first time in Ryan Fitzpatrick’s career last year, he actually had an all-around talented football team around him. If it wasn’t for a week 17 blunder, he would have led the Jets to a play-off birth. If surrounded by the right pieces again, Fitzpatrick could prove to still be amongst the top half of starting quarterbacks in the NFL, which maybe could just enough to help the Broncos reach the promise land one more time.