Ryan Fitzpatrick spoke to reporters very briefly before a practice round at a charity golf tournament in Nevada on Wednesday, but he declined to discuss his ongoing contract stalemate with the New York Jets.
“Not right now,” Fitzpatrick said before walking to the first tee.
Former Jets head coach Herm Edwards, who was also at the American Century Championship, believes Fitzpatrick and the team will eventually reach an agreement.
“It will get solved,” Edwards told Steve Yingling of the New York Post. “He will be a Jet. He’s the guy who [almost] took them to the playoffs. That’s their quarterback.
“Geno Smith is going to get a lot of reps, but I think if my team won 10 games with [Fitzpatrick] at the helm last year, then they’ll find a way to get it done.”
That’s what everyone seems to think, but a recent report indicated Fitzpatrick and the Jets are nowhere close to a deal and that the standoff could stretch well into the preseason. Like Edwards, former NFL quarterback Trent Green doesn’t see how New York can risk getting away from a formula that worked so well last season.
“I think it eventually gets done,” Green said. “I think the team likes him. He likes the team. He likes the guys. He likes the offense. … I covered the Jets quite a few times last year and had a chance to talk to him and the team, and I just know the relationship from an offensive standpoint, that he fits so well in what they are trying to do and has such a good understanding of it.”
There was speculation that the Jets will move on from Fitzpatrick if nothing can get accomplished by the start of training camp next week, but it sounds like that is not a hard deadline. Perhaps the best indication of where Fitzpatrick currently stands came from a piece of real estate news we heard this week.
