Would Bills teammates trade that victory to put Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jets in playoffs?

May 30, 2024

Ryan Fitzpatrick retired last week with the NFL record for most games played without a postseason appearance.

He came cruelly close in Orchard Park, but as the New York Jets’ quarterback. Fitzpatrick broke the Jets’ single-season touchdown record in 2015 and led them to 10 wins, but they needed to win the finale to make the tournament.

For his old team, meanwhile, the game was mostly meaningless. Sure, victory would give the Buffalo Bills a .500 record, but they’d been eliminated from the postseason already again, extending an embarrassing smear of an era.

The Jets lost 22-17.

That turned out to be Fitzpatrick’s best shot to experience the playoffs, a detail that makes his former teammates grimace. They all love Fitz. They want all the best things for Fitz. They would sacrifice whatever they could for Fitz.

Ryan Fitzpatrick retired last week after one season in Washington. (Geoff Burke / USA Today)

With that in mind, I reached out to four Bills teammates with a question:

If you could, would you go back in history and give up that victory in the 2015 finale so Fitzpatrick could experience the playoffs?

“I would do anything for Fitz to go to the playoffs, but, no, I wouldn’t do that,” long snapper Garrison Sanborn said, unwittingly channeling his inner Meat Loaf.

Defensive tackle Kyle Williams didn’t budge. A knee injury sidelined him at the end of the season, but he wasn’t willing to part with any Bills wins.

“Hindsight being 20/20, I woulda loved for him to make playoffs,” Williams texted, “but playing on the team and possibly in that game, absolutely not. I wasn’t giving wins up for anybody! LOL”

Right guard Kraig Urbik took a similar stance — eventually.

“I don’t want to lose ever,” Urbik said. “We lost enough in Buffalo. So to say I would allow a loss to a division rival, as much as I love Fitz, I don’t know.

“What did Eric say?”

Urbik was referring to center Eric Wood, the first person I called.

Wood said he’d be willing to absorb one more loss for Fitz’s sake.

“Crap,” Urbik replied. “Now I feel like the bad guy, but I hate losing. Someone else from that year can trade a win for a loss. I don’t want that on me.”

This isn’t to say the Bills should have thrown the game for Fitzpatrick. The Bills’ roster had been excavated since his departure. Few cared one whisker about such sentimentality.

Rex Ryan was Buffalo’s coach and certainly wanted to defeat his former employer. All of Buffalo’s points, passes, rushes, receptions, kick returns and punts were recorded by guys who didn’t play with Fitzpatrick. Only two offensive and three defensive starters played with him.

Wanting to finish the season strong, while denying an AFC East rival another postseason trip when Buffalo hadn’t been since 1999, provided Buffalo plenty of motivation.

“As a competitor, it feels weird to say,” Wood said, “but I would trade it. It’s easy to say now, knowing the Bills eventually would get to the playoffs.”

Fitzpatrick played well for three quarters, albeit from behind all afternoon. The Jets appeared destined to take the lead with a lengthy drive early in the fourth quarter, but it ended when he threw an interception to Leodis McKelvin in the end zone.

On the next series, Fitzpatrick spotted Brandon Marshall deep left, but Bills defensive tackle Marcell Dareus hit him as he threw, popping a wobbler to linebacker Manny Lawson. Fitzpatrick threw a third interception on a desperation heave with 11 seconds to play.

After the game, Wood found Fitzpatrick for a sympathetic hug and pats on the back. Fitzpatrick hugged him back for a few seconds, then staggered off like a zombie.

“It was emotional for both of us,” Wood said. “It’s weird to say; I wanted him to make the playoffs so bad, but I’m a captain and leader of the Bills. I didn’t want it to be at our expense. I’m out there, fighting for my job as well, but I hated it for him.

“I just hated it, just hated it.”

Wood’s hindsight rationale includes the ripple effects of what that victory truly meant to the organization.

Had the Bills lost, they would have gained six spots in the 2016 draft order.

Their 8-8 record slotted them 19th overall, where they selected defensive end Shaq Lawson.

At 7-9, they would have been tied with the Oakland Raiders, St. Louis Rams, Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints. Tiebreakers would have put the Bills 13th.

Available rookies included three future Pro Bowlers: offensive linemen Laremy Tunsil and Ryan Kelly and safety Keanu Neal. If general manager Doug Whaley and Ryan were insistent on drafting an edge rusher, however, then they might have taken Lawson anyway. No pass rushers were taken between picks No. 13 and 19.

Within a year, the Bills fired Rex Ryan. Four months later, Whaley was gone too.

“That win likely doesn’t move the needle in either direction,” Wood said. “Sean McDermott still likely comes in anyway.

“All that being said, if it could work out like it has for Buffalo, I would sacrifice that win if it gets Fitz a playoff game.”

That’s how cherished Fitzpatrick was to his teammates, and he had a lot of them.

He started for nine teams, staying with Buffalo the longest. He didn’t last beyond two seasons anyplace else. Always signed as a backup, he started 147 games. The previous record for most starts without a postseason appearance was Archie Manning at 139.

“I don’t put never making the playoffs on Fitz,” Sanborn said. “When teams get a quarterback who is The Guy, they get several years to accomplish what they were brought there to accomplish. GMs build teams around you and give you weapons to succeed.

“There were no teams built around him. He had to work with what he was given, but he still put up points.”

Fitzpatrick was a 2005 seventh-round draft choice, yet his career compares well with that year’s top overall pick, three-time Pro Bowler Alex Smith.

Fitzpatrick completed 60.7 percent of his passes for 34,990 yards and 223 touchdowns with 169 interceptions. He rushed for 2,623 yards and 21 touchdowns.

Smith lasted seven years with the San Francisco 49ers and five with the Kansas City Chiefs before finishing with two seasons in Washington. He completed 62.6 percent for 35,650 yards and 199 touchdowns with 109 interceptions. Smith ran for 2,604 yards and 14 TDs.

“He was always seen as a stop-gap quarterback where maybe the rosters weren’t as talented,” Wood said of Fitzpatrick. “They weren’t built to make the playoffs.

“He certainly had the talent, the experience, and the respect of people around the league to be a starting quarterback for a majority of his career.”

Even with his relative lack of starts over 17 seasons, only 31 quarterbacks have thrown for more yards and 35 have thrown more touchdowns than Fitzpatrick.

Among the 29 quarterbacks who’ve thrown for as many yards and TDs, he’s tied for 23rd in touchdown percentage and tied for 19th in interception percentage. The only two on the list not to have been selected for a Pro Bowl are Fitzpatrick and Joe Flacco, a Super Bowl MVP.

“Fitz had all the confidence in the world in his abilities and his decision-making,” Urbik said. “He had that gunslinger mentality. He wasn’t afraid. That’s what I loved most about him.

“All the guys would feed off him. He’s a very good leader, knows what he wants to do against every opponent. He takes command. You followed him into every game. With him at quarterback, you always had a chance.”

Asked to describe what kind of teammate Fitzpatrick was, Sanborn pulled up the text he wrote to Fitzpatrick after the quarterback reached out to let him know he was retiring.

Sanborn, who also spent two seasons with him as Tampa Bay Buccaneers, read his response over the phone:

“Congratulations on an amazing career, man. You made playing the game more fun and more importantly you were a role model to so many other players.

“I won’t forget my rookie year, being a nervous wreck. You took over the job early in the season and were a gunslinger. I was thinking ‘This guy has kids to feed and is still young in his career, trying to make it. How can he play that loose and carefree?’ Your influence honestly changed my demeanor long-term and made me a better player.

“So congratulations on a great career and all the people you influenced! Enjoy the family!”

Despite the impeccable impression he made on his teammates, front offices weren’t so eager to latch on. Fitzpatrick led a vagabond existence, constantly needing to convince teams he was better than second string.

A few weeks into the 2018 season, Fitzpatrick’s contradictory existence led to laughs with Sanborn on the Buccaneers’ team bus.

With starter Jameis Winston suspended for inappropriately touching an Uber driver, Fitzpatrick set an NFL record with three consecutive 400-yard games to open the season. Fitzpatrick threw for 11 touchdowns and ran for another. He was named NFC Offensive Player of the Week each of the first two games. The Buccaneers were 2-1, the lone loss by a field goal to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

After a bad first half in Week 4, Fitzpatrick was replaced by Winston. The same day the Buccaneers fulfilled a request from the Pro Football Hall of Fame to ship Fitzpatrick’s jersey to Canton, the team announced Winston would be their starter moving forward. The Buccaneers went 3-6 with Winston as the starter.

Just arrived in Canton: the jersey worn by @Buccaneers QB Ryan Fitzpatrick from Week 3 of this season when he became the 1st QB in @NFL history to throw for 400 YDs in 3 consecutive games. #GoBucs #Fitzmagic pic.twitter.com/HJb31yZEvz

— Pro Football Hall of Fame (@ProFootballHOF) October 2, 2018

“That’s how short his leash always was,” Sanborn said. “You can be the best quarterback in NFL history and then immediately get benched.”

How did Fitzpatrick respond? With a shrug.

Because he encountered so many ups and downs while playing for almost a third of the NFL’s teams, stories abound of Fitzpatrick’s commitment to being a supportive teammate.

“It didn’t matter,” Sanborn said of Fitzpatrick’s demeanor after getting replaced. “He was signed to be the backup to Jameis originally. He was great about it. He never had a negative thing to say, a true professional.

“He’s an unreal teammate. I don’t know if you can get a better one.”

Sanborn never played in the postseason, but he received a Super Bowl ring as a member of the 2020 Buccaneers practice squad.

Urbik, Wood and Williams experienced the playoffs once apiece. Urbik made it with the Miami Dolphins in 2016, his first season away from the Bills.

Wood and Williams finally got to the postseason in 2017, when the Cincinnati Bengals delivered a lightning-bolt miracle to eliminate the Baltimore Ravens and end the Bills’ famine. A neck injury forced Wood to retire weeks later. Williams retired after the 2018 campaign.

So these three Fitzpatrick mates all had little nibbles at postseason glory, but at least they got to taste it. He never will, an inconvenient truth Wood didn’t expect when the Bills beat Fitzpatrick seven seasons ago.

“It’s wild that in 17 years he didn’t make it to the playoffs,” Wood said. “But I don’t want to paint any kind of picture that his career was any less spectacular because he didn’t make the playoffs. That doesn’t define his career.”

(Top photo of Ryan Fitzpatrick: Bill Wippert / AP Photo)

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