The Jets and Ryan Fitzpatrick remain far apart in talks to bring the veteran back for a second season.
Fitzpatrick is still eyeing a contract commensurate with the league’s established starters at $16MM per season or clo
se to that, per Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (video link), who reports the Jets’ best offer toward the 33-year-old currently sits at $7MM AAV.
Cole also reports the Jets’ offer could be approaching $9MM per year when factoring in incentives, which goes along with a New York Post report from earlier today. Fitzpatrick’s camp has resisted this idea.
Gang Green’s offer to retain Fitzpatrick is now coinciding with top-end backup money after Chase Daniel and Robert Griffin III signed accords worth upwards of $7MM per season. Both will obviously compete for their respective team’s starting job, but their salaries have created a range that previously didn’t exist for veteran QBs.
That appears to be Fitzpatrick’s floor after he set a career high with a Jets single-season record 31 touchdown passes last season. Fitz, though, completed just 59.6% of his passes, which represented a considerable drop from his previous seasons.
Although the Jets do not view Geno Smith as a viable option to reclaim his starting job as his contract year approaches, Gang Green isn’t concerned at this juncture about its quarterback situation, per Cole. He expects the Jets to pursue a trade for another team’s backup, with Mike Glennon‘s name emerging soon after.
Glennon’s name has surfaced lately as a player that seems to be making its way onto the trade block as the Buccaneers backup’s contract year nears. Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News reports the Jets have indeed researched Glennon as a possible solution and are scanning reserves around the league in case they cannot re-sign Fitzpatrick, whom they want to retain.
It won’t take a first-round pick to pry Glennon from Tampa Bay, Mehta reports, and a second-rounder would exceed any compensatory value the career 58% passer would produce. The Jets may not be willing to go that far, however.
Muhammad Wilkerson would probably be a way for the Jets to escape giving up a second-rounder in this potential deal, Mehta writes, but the Bucs already have Gerald McCoy signed to a top-end defensive tackle contract (seven years, $95.2MM). The Bucs’ willingness to fork over $40MM+ guaranteed for the Jets’ franchise-tagged stalwart may be a stumbling block here.
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Jfc, sure $16mil is a bit much but your best offer is frickin’ 7??? That’s just insulting.
the man didn’t mind signing for 3 million the year before. they are more than doubling his salary for a player that has stayed healthy once in a season for the last four years.