When he was drafted by the Rams in 2005, about the only thing any NFL fan knew about Ryan Fitzpatrick was that he went to Harvard and that he had the highest Wonderlic score of anyone in that year’s draft class.
Now that Fitzpatrick is leading a Bills offense that’s lighting up the scoreboard, we’re starting to find out that Fitzpatrick has a pretty good arm to go along with his impressive brain. But as Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times writes in a good story on Fitzpatrick, it’s still his mental abilities that most impress the people around him.
“He’s smart,” Bills coach Chan Gailey said of Fitzpatrick. “He’s obviously highly intelligent when it comes to protections and coverages and what defenses are trying to do.”
Farmer’s whole piece on Fitzpatrick is worth a read, but I was especially interested in this detail that was provided by Farmer on Twitter: In 2005, some Rams players asked Fitzpatrick to settle an argument because they thought his Harvard education qualified him. They asked, “What would hurt more, getting hit in the face by the trunk of an elephant or being kicked in the face by a donkey?”
I went to Illinois, not Harvard, so I’m not smart enough to have the answer to that one. Maybe someone out there in PFT Planet can enlighten me.