Fitzpatrick hasn’t rounded up a Hall of Fame career, but he certainly made it worth watching, both on and off the court. Fitzpatrick has thrown a touchdown pass to 62 different players in his career, coming behind three passersby (Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Vinny Testaverdi) who have thrown a touchdown pass to more than 62 different players in NFL history. He became known for composing sensational finishing touches, no matter which team he plays for, and the only disappointment came with the area he didn’t reach: the post-season. Fitzpatrick’s 34,990 passing yards is the most in NFL history by a player who has never played in a playoff game, and ranks 32nd in league history.
However, given where he started, Fitzpatrick outdid his odds by a wide margin. He has the most career passing yards of all the later drafted seventh-round quarterbacks in the Common Draft era, edging out 1977 tenth-placed Steve Diberg by 749 yards and standing well ahead of Super Bowl XXXVII champ Brad Johnson. Fitzpatrick is the only quarterback in NFL history to win a game with seven or more different teams (Miami, Tampa Bay, New York Jets, Buffalo, Houston, Cincinnati, Tennessee). He is also tied for seventh seasons in career by a quarterback since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, trailing only Brady, Testaverde, Brett Favre, Dave Craig and Ben Roethlisberger, and is one of 30 quarterbacks in NFL history with 34,000 – Plus passing and 220 yards plus landing career.
Fitzpatrick first saw the field as a result of Rams player Mark Bolger’s injury and appeared in four games (three starts) in 2005, starting the game 0-3. He didn’t throw a pass in a game for the next two seasons, continuing a typical late-choice infantry run, but 2008 is when things started to change for Fitzpatrick.
St. Louis traded Fitzpatrick for Cincinnati in the seventh inning in 2007, and the quarterback ended up starting 12 games for the Bengals in place of the injured Carson Palmer. He went 4-7-1 as a starter and impressed other NFL clubs enough to earn a three-year deal with the Buffalo Bills in 2009. Another player injury – this time, Trent Edwards – opened the door for Fitzpatrick to prove his worth, and by the 2011 season, Fitzpatrick had done enough to earn base work at Buffalo for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
And so it became the theme of Fitzpatrick’s career: he signed for a team, fought for a place on the roster, and eventually found his way onto the field due to a player injury. It happened in Tennessee in 2013 and Houston in 2014. And in 2015, Fitzpatrick found some stability with the New York Jets (in part due to a locker room brawl that forced Jenno Smith to step back from play), at the start of an exciting season that almost saw the New York up to postseason. He remained for one more season before moving to Tampa, where he replaced injured James Winston in six games (three starts) in 2017 and appeared in eight games (seven starts) in 2018, scoring 24-15 touchdown to interception. between 2017 and 2018.