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By now everyone who has internet or has watched eight seconds of Sports Center knows that Jets quarterback Geno Smith was sucker punched by an irrelevant former late round draft pick and will miss 6-10 weeks with a broken jaw. While oddly enough sports stations talk wall-to-wall about how this incident perfectly encapsulates the 40 year mess the Jets have been, they have neglected to go into any amount of detail about how New York will fair without Smith. Now, with Smith sitting on the sidelines, backup quarterback and journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick will become the starter.
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Since being drafted in 2005, he has been on six teams, so transitioning to a new one should be second nature to the 32-year old. Fitz also has plenty of starting experience, as he has started in 86 of the 112 possible games since the beginning of the 2008 season. He accomplished that despite playing for the Bengals, Bills, Titans and Texans and despite being a backup for a fair chunk of the time.
Also, despite Geno’s injury being perceived as negative, it is a massive blessing in disguise for the Jets. It was a near guarantee that even if Geno didn’t break his jaw that Fitzpatrick at some point in the year would become the starter.
Geno has a career 25-34 touchdown to interception ratio and an atrocious 57.5% completion percentage. In 2014, he threw for 13 touchdowns and 13 interceptions while maintaining a 60% completion percentage and averaged 180 yards per game. The crazy part about those numbers is that Smith actually improved from 2013 with those stats. He was a better quarterback despite last season having the 27th highest completion percentage, the 33rd most passing yards per game, the 5th highest percentage of times intercepted when attempting to pass and the 26th highest percentage of touchdowns thrown when attempting to pass.
Face it. Smith is a bag of warm garbage when he can’t even throw for more yards than 30-year old Michigan State bust Drew Stanton or career backup and AARP cardholder Shaun Hill.
Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, will be much more beneficial to the Jets success than Geno Smith would be. Fitz had a 63.1% completion percentage in 2014, which is extremely average. With Houston last season he threw for 17 touchdowns and 8 interceptions in 12 games albeit that was with Andre Johnson and DeAndre Hopkins. The Amish Rifle isn’t going to put up crazy yardage or move the ball down the field at a lightning pace, but he is very efficient with his passes, having the fourth highest yards per attempt last season. Fitzy, in a very quiet manner, had the ninth highest passer rating in 2014 as well.
While Fitzpatrick gives the Jets offense value now, especially considering he has played under offensive coordinator Chan Gailey with the Bills, he obviously won’t be the long-term answer in New York. However fans need to forget Geno’s odd 358 yard, 3 touchdown performance against the Dolphins at the end of last season. He had an awful season and just managed to pull off a great performance to torture Jets fans into maintaining false hope that maybe Smith could be a serviceable starting quarterback.
It’s not that anyone should root for Geno to stay sidelined for the entire ten weeks, but the Jets would be a much more competitive team with Fitzmagic and his righteous beard.
Additionally, from a fantasy football perspective, although Fitz has never excelled,, he is primed to have a better season than in years past behind the newly acquired Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker. He likely won't be a QB1 in any leagues but if he develops chemistry with his two veteran receivers, he could be fine in a spot start in your fantasy league on a bye week or if your starter is injured. Plus Fitzpatrick will most likely be found on the waiver wire in most fantasy leagues, so owners wont have to worry about holding a roster spot on him and could just simply pick him up whenever a spot start from a quarterback is needed.
He will never be a flashy quarterback from a statistical standpoint but he is reliable and could factor in as an under-the-radar upside QB2 depending upon league sizes.
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