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Ryan Fitzpatrick will be the pregame analyst for Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football,” which begins this fall, he said in an interview with The Post.
Fitzpatrick will join previously announced Richard Sherman and Tony Gonazlez on reception, who are expected to be present at every Thursday night game throughout the fall.
The Post has previously reported that Fox Sports’ Charissa Thompson is the lead candidate for the role of host and that Marshawn Lynch is likely to be involved.
Enticing people to watch means being interesting, and it’s hard to argue that Fitzpatrick isn’t. The Harvard grad spent 17 years in the nine-team NFL and earned the nickname “FitzMagic” for his sometimes splashy play, including in 2015 with the Jets. He and his wife have seven children (three boys, four girls) ranging in age from 3 to 15.
Fitzpatrick, 39, retired from the NFL after his hip injury basically cost him all of last season with Washington. Having not played for most of the year, he was left with no starting chances in the league.
This, combined with the constant moving of his family and his eldest child entering high school, forced him to ditch his helmet and shoulder pads.
“It kind of opened my eyes to life after football,” Fitzpatrick said. “And here we are.”
Fitzpatrick said the two obvious post-playing careers for him after 17 years in the league were either coaching or media. At the time, he didn’t want to put his family through the agony of coaching.
“Amazon jumped on me,” Fitzpatrick said. “In that sense, it’s something fresh and new. It just made a lot of sense for what I was getting into.”
Since Amazon is on Thursdays, Fitzpatrick said this will allow him to attend his kids’ soccer games and soccer tournaments.
“And also so I can sit down with my kids and watch some of these games on Sunday,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s something I haven’t had a lot of time to do in the last 17 years.”
A little over three years ago, Fitzpatrick had his youngest child, which came after he and his wife considered going to the next level of the family because an SUV seats eight but not nine.
“Are we going to get a bigger 12-passenger van and be this weird looking family?” Fitzpatrick said.
The Fitzpatricks are pottering around in a Nissan NV these days.
“I had no interest in getting one [Mercedes-Benz] Sprinters or something overly nice for the family,” Fitzpatrick said. “The amount of Cheerios and goldfish on the floor that’s smashed and Chick-Fil-A’s ranch and barbecue sauce. I wasn’t interested in getting a Sprinter.”
Since Fitzpatrick will be an analyst, we asked him to put on a microphone to analyze the two young New York quarterbacks.
About the Jets sophomore quarterback Zack Wilson, Fitzpatrick said Wilson had to be himself
“The only thing I would say about Zach Wilson is that he’s just watching from afar and he’s in the situation of being a quarterback, especially in New York, but he’s a young guy trying to figure out what he does in this league, he has to be himself,” Fitzpatrick said. “I know he has a lot of different people on his mind. He flies in various quarterback coaches and I’m sure life coaches and agents and my biggest advice to him would be go out to dinner, have a beer with your linemen, be yourself. Don’t try to be what everyone else thinks the starting quarterback should be in the NFL. And I think that will help him relax and have a much better year.”
To the Giants’ Daniel Jones, who is in his fourth year
“Daniel Jones is interesting to me because I also had coaches who switched with him,” Fitzpatrick said. “And I’ve met him and know him a little bit. Really nice guy. But then to turn it around and say, ‘Okay, well, how did he play?’ I think it was a difficult situation. There have been many injuries. There was a lot of stuff he had to play through. I actually really like his talent.
“I think the running part was a surprise for me. I didn’t know he would be as athletic as he is. But this is a make-or-break year for him. He knows that and everyone in the world knows that. So it’s not going to be about him putting in the work because I know he has a strong work ethic. But this year will be about results. Will ge be able to produce or not?
“And I’m going to say that, you know, with his new coach and what they’ve already been able to do with Josh Allen. Take a guy with a low completion percentage of 50 years and [Brian Daboll] got him in the top five – 67-68 percent, whatever it was (69.2 percent in 2020). That was Josh Allen, but a lot of it was also Brian Daboll about what he could do. Hopefully they can come to terms quickly and get comfortable quickly and I think Daboll will do great things for his career.
