Bill Belichick won the coin toss and didn’t want the ball at the start of overtime, didn’t want Tom Brady to have the ball at the start of overtime to try to score a touchdown to win the game and ruin the Jets’ season. He wanted Ryan Fitzpatrick to have the ball at the start of overtime because he has made a career of chewing and spitting out Jets quarterbacks and figured he had himself another foil.
Thanks, genius!
Somebody forgot to tell Belichick there is FitzMagic in the air around these Jets.
The football gods must want Fitzpatrick to reach the playoffs after 11 long years toiling for six teams trying to get there, and when Jets 26, Patriots 20 ended, the man they call FitzMagic was sitting on Breno Giacomini’s lap in a locker room that can smell and taste and reach out and touch the playoffs.
Fitzpatrick coolly, calmly, efficiently and cold-bloodedly marched the Jets into the end zone — first a 48-yard catch-and-run down the left sideline by an unsung hero named Quincy Enunwa, then a 20-yard strike to Brandon Marshall, finally a 6-yard touchdown pass to Eric Decker, who was swallowed up by euphoric Jets fans following a veritable Lambeau East Leap into the stands — and Brady never got his chance.
And now FitzMagic and the Jets have their fate in their own hands thanks to the Ravens upsetting the Steelers and — wouldn’t you know it? — none other than Rex Ryan is standing in their way next Sunday in Buffalo, one of FitzMagic’s previous stops.
A team of destiny, and a team of destination. Win and they’re in. For the first time in five years.
“I want it. … I want it bad,” Sheldon Richardson said.
They all do, from Todd Bowles, the rookie head coach, to Marshall, who has never been to the playoffs after 10 long years, to all the Jets who endured the last four seasons under Ryan.
But none more than Fitzpatrick, who has mostly been an afterthought every step of the way, the Ivy League brainiac who could never find a home. Who threw a pair of touchdown passes to Marshall and returns to Buffalo with 29, tied with Vinny Testaverde for franchise-best, against 12 interceptions.
“This is a fun run,” Fitzpatrick said.
He held his two sons’ hands as he walked over for a television interview outside the locker room.
“This has been great, the last month or so, just the growth that we’ve shown as a team, and to do it with the guys that we have in that locker room,” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick, who was overthrowing receivers early, has weathered plenty of storms, and when Jamie Collins returned his fumble 14 yards for a momentum-changing touchdown, here was another one.
Disspatrick.
Belichick: “I thought that was the best thing to do.”
It was the worst thing to do.
Belichick: “Looking at field position.”
Brady: “Whatever Coach decides, that’s what the team does.”
Bowles: “I’ve seen it before. You’re always happy to get it first to try and score.”
FitzMagic: “Nothing surprises you about the Patriots and strategy and what they think. We were excited to get the opportunity to get the ball and have a chance to put them away.”
The drive would start at the 20.
“Let’s be great,” Nick Mangold said.
FitzMagic: “Everybody knew what we had to do. We just had to step up and make plays and so there wasn’t some grand, great speech or anything. It was just, ‘Let’s go do our job.’”
Enunwa had let a deep shot from FitzMagic trickle off his fingertips at the end of regulation. It was Redemption Time for him.
“It just shows you that you have to fight through the adversity, look forward to the next play, and I think he’s really grown as a football player this year and that was a good indication why,” Fitzpatrick said about Enunwa.
FitzMagic found Marshall for his 100th catch of the season. “I loved the feeling on the sideline and the feeling in the huddle when that was going on,” FitzMagic said.
Decker had caught two balls before corralling the game-winner on a FitzMagic Floater all alone in the right corner past Malcolm Butler.
“Eric did a tremendous job today of staying patient,” Fitzpatrick said.
Bills fans might not recognize Fitzpatrick, who wasn’t FitzMagic when he played in Buffalo from 2009 to 2012.
“I spent four years there, and my kids, the neighbors, we’ve got such a great relationship with a lot of people in Buffalo,” FitzMagic said.
Now Bring on Rex.
“In the words of the great Steve Smith: ‘Man, it’s gonna be a bloodbath, man,’” Calvin Pace said.