I know the story.
Ryan Fitzpatrick has led the Bills to a shocking 4-2 record. He’s thrown for 1,477 yards, 12 touchdowns and six interceptions while leading the NFL’s second-highest scoring offense in those six games. He’s on pace for well over 3,000 yards and 32 touchdowns. He ranks sixth in the NFL in completion percentage (66.3%) and seventh in quarterback rating (95.3).
Hey, I’ll take it. I’m just as thrilled as the next Bills fan.
What we’re all forgetting here, though, is the big picture.
With NFL.com and The Buffalo News reporting last week that Fitzpatrick and the Bills are nearing a deal to extend the quarterback’s tenure with the franchise well past this season, it has got to get you thinking: Is Fitz really the right man to take this struggling franchise into a new era?
It’s an era, in large part due to Fitzpatrick’s effort as a starter since last season, that Bills fans are finally excited about. And for good reason.
This team is finally exciting again. I mean, it only took them 11 years.
But can the man who has led the charge so far continue to do so and turn the Bills into serious contenders? A team that not only contends to make the playoffs every year, but to win a Super Bowl?
These are questions that all Bills fans must be asking themselves right now. And I am yet to be convinced.
If the reported 3-5 year, $9-$12-million deal goes through, we’re stuck with Fitz during what will be the most crucial time in franchise history.
Ralph Wilson’s tenure as owner of the Bills is nearly up. All lease talks aside, the prospects of the Bills leaving town for the highest bidder in the near future are still very real, although unlikely at this point. But as far as the lease extension and/or new prospective owners who wish to keep the team here long-term go, I’ll believe them when I see them.
Preferably, you’d like to enter this time of uncertainty with a face to your franchise. Someone whom you can build the entire future around.
Once the extension is agreed upon, Fitz will become that face to this franchise whether we like it or not. But it’s a franchise that can’t afford any more hardships as it moves away from the Ralph Wilson era. So with this new deal comes pressure. And the pressure will be immense.
Fitzpatrick is a great story. And the numbers, not to mention his record, to this point speak for themselves. How can you not like the guy? It’s no surprise that he’s won everyone’s heart over. He’s probably my favorite Bill at the moment (Which is saying a lot, seeing as I don’t think I’ve had a favorite Bill in the 20 years I’ve been on this earth).
But this week will mark the halfway-point to the NFL season. The Bills’ 4-2 record right now means absolutely nothing come Week 18. It’ll be what Fitzpatrick and the rest of the Bills do from now until the conclusion of the regular season that will shed the most light on this team, specifically Fitzpatrick, going forward.
In today’s NFL, you live and die by your quarterback. It’s really as simple as that. Teams with Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers win Super Bowls. Teams with Trent Edwards under center.. well, you get my point.
Fitzpatrick is no Brady. He’s no Manning. He’s probably not even Michael Vick.
My point is, Fitz is not now, nor will he ever be, an elite, Hall-of-Fame-caliber quarterback. And you’re fooling yourself if you think otherwise.
And folks, what do you need on your football team to win Super Bowls these days? You guessed it: elite-level quarterbacks. That’s what wins championships in this league; a league that has shifted so far towards the offensive side of the ball that the proverbial “defense wins championships” mindset hasn’t been relevant since, well, Tampa Bay in 2003.
You say “Yeah, see! Tampa won it with Brad Johnson”. Well, you forget that Johnson threw for 3,811 yards and 26 touchdowns that season. Combine that with arguably one of the best defenses the NFL has seen in its history and it’s no wonder they won the Super Bowl that year.
The same case occurred two seasons earlier when Trent Dilfer and the Baltimore Ravens won it all off of the superb play of their own historic defense.
The Bills defense this season, however, is a far cry from the legendary D’s of the Ravens and Buccaneers at the turn of the century.
In fact, it’s hard to make a case that they’re even up to par with the league average.
What I’m saying is, of the Super Champions of the past decade or so, each team won the title based off of either the play of their elite quarterback or efforts of their lights-out defense.
With Fitzpatrick at the helm and the current state of the Bills, this team has neither.
Now, that’s not to say that Buddy Nix and Co. won’t be able to fill in the missing pieces over time and turn this team into a championship contender. But that sort of architecture takes a group of people with incredible football IQs — a football genius if you will — something I’m still fairly certain Nix is not. It’s a method that is much harder to accomplish in today’s NFL.
Don’t you think it would have been much simpler and that much more beneficial for the Bills to absolutely suck this year only to stumble across a franchise quarterback in the process at the top of the draft board.
This method is how the Colts made their rise to glory, and is thrust into the spotlight this season especially, with the expectation that Andrew Luck will declare for the draft this Spring.
Instead of the Bills having a shot at the face of their franchise for the next decade or so, they’ll meander their way throughout the remainder of this season, potentially earning themselves a playoff berth along the way, only to suffer a first-round beat down at the heels of a real contender and watch as the division-rival Dolphins instill a new regime and draft the guy who will potentially terrorize Bills fans and the AFC East for another 15 years, much like Brady and Belichick have done of late.
I’m not saying that I don’t think the Bills can be competitive with Fitzpatrick under center, because I do. What I’m doing is questioning his, and moreso the Nix regime’s, ability to take the team and build it from simply being a playoff team to a team that can finally bring Buffalo the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Even with all the great stats so far, I remain unconvinced that Fitz can be that guy. Call me a pessimist. Whatever. 11 years of watching a joke of a franchise play abysmal football will do that to you, I guess.
But just be sure to move forward with an objective eye as we sit back and watch this team grow into something we hope we can finally be proud of and be careful not to get caught up in the false hope that this franchise often provides for us.
Look, we’re not winning anything this year. I know the offense looks great, but how long will it be before some of the league’s best defenses are able to crack Fitzmagic’s winning code? We certainly can’t rely on our defense to bail him out when they do. And that was put on display during the Bills’ most recent loss to the New York Giants.
I hope Fitzpatrick proves me wrong. I really do. After this innevitable new deal comes to fruition, he’ll have plenty of time to do just that.
I just lack the belief that the Bills can provide him with the extra resources he’ll most certainly need to go from being simply a good quarterback in the NFL to becoming one who can take this team to a Super Bowl.
And that’s all we really want, right? Someone who can bring this city a Super Bowl we can call our own.
You almost certainly don’t agree with Brandon on this article, so let him hear it with your gripes littered with misspelled words and improper usage of grammar in the comment box below! Or better yet, follow him on Twitter and express your fond opinions of him @THWGoldSchlager.
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