Keidel: We Get It, The Jets Beat Fitzpatrick ... Now Sign Him, Please
By Jason Keidel
» More Columns
Fans have a curious bond with the players they cheer with frothing devotion. They buy jerseys, swear by the name and number, and take an implicit oath to follow them into the pits of hell.
Yet when said players are free agents and try to cash in, fans call them divas, pampered stars detached from the rigors of real life. Fans implore the teams to play 1950s hardball, to go Branch Rickey at contract time.
For some reason, owners may make countless billions, preen from a glass cube in the upper rungs of the stadium and live in the high orbit of privilege, but when players -- particularly NFL players -- try to grab their slice of the pie, their jerseys are used to build bonfires.
We don't even have to look beyond the five boroughs to find team owners or soon-to-be owners who came out of the womb with wealth. Among our more fortunate sons are John Mara, Woody Johnson, Jeff Wilpon, and, our most iconic owner of all, George Steinbrenner. All were born with bank.
NFL players don't have guaranteed contracts. They can be cut for having concussions, contusions, or just for turning 30 years old. Many enter their golden years with broken limbs, synthetic joints, and an infant's sense of memory.
But when Ryan Fitzpatrick had the gall to go for it, to ask for $15 million or -- gasp! -- $18 million to play quarterback for a billionaire owner of a multi-billion-dollar franchise, the Jets' QB in 2015 suffered from terminal avarice.
MORE: Marshall: Jets Will 'Be OK' If Fitzpatrick Doesn't Come Back
Fitzpatrick happens to be a Harvard man, so finding private-sector employment wouldn't be an issue. But many players play football because it's their best -- if not only -- option to provide for their families.
How many times do we have to hear about a former, forlorn player lost to CTE, who slowly fades under the dim lights of dementia, living in his car, out of the bottle, under a bridge, before we actually consider how hard it is to play professional football? Why is the impulse to defend an owner whose idea of a morning commute is hopping from one helicopter pad to another?
So what gives? Why do we care when a high-end athlete squeezes a few bucks from a league that generates at least $10 billion a year?
The Jets, the employer, the equivalent of "The House" in Las Vegas, gambled that no team would make it rain on Fitzpatrick. And they won. As the house so often does. Which means Fitzpatrick may very well have lost $10 million in base salary, and perhaps $30 million over the presumed three years he will get from the Jets. So be it. The rich get exponentially richer.
So it's time to end this silliness. What I would like -- and surely most Jets devotees would like -- is for the Jets to just sign this guy, who is coming off arguably the best season for a Jets QB since Joe Namath tossed perfect spirals to Don Maynard.
Don't go all Christian Hackenberg on us. Don't pretend the Penn State player -- whom countless pundits have shredded for having mechanical and accuracy issues -- can step in and fire live NFL rounds as a rookie.
Even if the Jets think their newly-minted backup is the face of the future, they need Fitzpatrick this year. And probably next year. Fortunately, he still needs the Jets.
Sure, we always root for the laundry. But Fitzpatrick wore his shade of Gang Green pretty well. He was vastly underpaid last year, and was looking to be overpaid this year. It's all in the game. Some of us just don't understand why you root for a billionaire, whose name lords over a franchise, over a millionaire, who may one day forget his own name.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
