Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, whose Harvard education means that he’s fairly smart (to say the very least), could be on the brink of a brilliant upgrade to his game.
New quarterbacks coach David Lee has studied every flaw in Fitzpatrick’s throwing, and now they are trying to improve the process.
“I just go out there and throw; that’s what I’ve done my whole life,” Fitzpatrick said, via Mark Gaughan of the Buffalo News. “No one’s really ever taught me how to do it. Now for a guy to come in and say, ‘This is why you’re missing that throw low,’ for him to actually have evidence for me to look at and say, ‘OK. It looks like that’s something I really need to work on,’ and for a guy to be as respected as he is, to be as knowledgeable as he is, that’s somebody that I’m going to listen to every time.
“I knew I had a long way to go with my mechanics, but I just didn’t know how to find that person or how to improve at it,” Fitzpatrick added. “He’s going to be a very big help for me this year.”
From Lee’s perspective, it’s not all that difficult. “I just saw some things I thought we could correct fundamentally from his lower body,” Lee said. “Just where his placement of his left foot was. He was blocking out his right hip to get more power and velocity.”
Lee is encouraged by Fitzpatrick’s progress. “Fortunately he is so smart,” Lee said. “He sees it on tape. And when he sees it and has evidence as to why it’s going where it’s going, and then trusts and believes that maybe there is something in the lower body that’s wrong. . . . I’m really pleased with how quickly he’s taken to it but it’s not muscle memory yet, because we haven’t done it long enough. You throw one way your whole life then somebody tries to adjust some things, it doesn’t just happen overnight.”
If Fitzpatrick can use his brain to accelerate the changes he plans to make when using his body, improvements could come quickly, both for Fitzpatrick and for the up-and-coming Bills.