Ryan Fitzpatrick wasn't perfect at today's two-toned practice — a session that started outdoors, then moved inside early on when the North Jersey skies opened up.
But after Wednesday night's arrival off signing his new contract, Thursday's decent outing, Friday's near flawless passing day, and today's third practice of training camp, he just gives that sense that he's right where he needs to be.
"Somewhere around halfway through the first practice, I started feeling a lot better, seeing things a lot better, the ball was coming off my hand better," Fitzpatrick told reporters against the end zone wall of the Atlantic Health Training Center fieldhouse. "Today we did some red zone stuff where I was a little bit slow on some of my throws and just not as crisp as I wanted to be, and so I think it was apparent there that I had a long way to go.
"But I felt good the first two days, my arm feels good, the rapport with the guys is still there. So we've just got to continue to have that upward trend."
Like the man with the beard and the high hair said, today's third practice of camp wasn't perfect. He shrugged off a nifty long ball to Brandon Marshall — "Some of the chemistry with Brandon is 'Hey, Brandon, run deep, I'll throw it up.' 'I'll jump and get it.' He's a freak of nature. He makes my job easy."
The QB also had one tipped pass and one bobbled ball taken away from his receiver. But the ball is coming out crisply no matter what the situation and the poise is still evident.
"There's a few different wrinkles and words and stuff here and there," Fitz said. "Missing time, that's not the issue. Whatever the offense is, I think I'd be able to pick it up pretty quick, and this one I'm obviously pretty familiar with. I missed a lot in the offseason. I would've loved to be here for the other quarterbacks, for the receivers, to just kind of push this offenses forward. But it is what it is. Fortunately I was able to come in at the beginning of training camp and now it's kind of grind every day and continue to get better."
Fitzpatrick agreed that there might be one more element to his seamless transition from free agent to returning Jets QB and that's his relationship with head coach Todd Bowles.
"I think Todd and I are very similar in that we just like to come to work and do our job, and we don't really care about the fluff and everything else," he said. "So that's something I really appreciate about him. He lets that be known right away that he's here to work. He doesn't care about the distractions and the predictions. He's purely a football coach and I think we mesh well."
