Ryan Fitzpatrick Says Brock Purdy is a Top 5 QB in NFL - Exclusive Interview
Earlier this week, I got the chance to talk to former NFL quarterback and current analyst on Amazon's Thursday Night Football broadcast, Ryan Fitzpatrick, to talk about a variety of topics.
As a Falcons fan myself, I had to ask him about whether or not Desmond Ridder is the quarterback of the future in Atlanta. Fitzpatrick isn't out on him yet, but he recognized that he needs to improve sooner rather than later.
"Desmond's has to play better. He does. When you have young quarterbacks, this is what's going to happen. There's going to be some struggles but you just want to see him keep getting better and better. You want to see some of the mistakes being made, maybe the next week we're not seeing as many."
He went on to say:
"This is a good football team this year so the patience and how long they're going to wait for him to play better - we'll see - he had a much better second half [against the Jaguars] than he did first half, I think we all saw that," Fitzpatrick told FanSided. "You see the reasons why they like him but now we've gotta get more consistent in a game-to-game basis."
On the topic of quarterback, I asked Fitzpatrick who, in his mind, are some of the most underrated quarterbacks in the NFL. He gave me two names.
"Joshua Dobbs and what he's done this year in Arizona, for a guy to be pulled out of [Cleveland] to be brought to Arizona this year to a team that nobody thought was going to do anything, how well he's playing right now has been awesome. He's playing winning football," Fitzpatrick said.
The other name he mentioned was Brock Purdy.
"And then Brock Purdy. There still aren't enough people talking about Brock Purdy. Everybody keeps saying 'Well he's a system guy, it's [Kyle] Shanahan, it's the weapons, he's got a great defense', but watch this kid play football. He's a machine. It's absolutely insane, he's a machine, he makes the decisions that he needs to be making all the time, he's quick, he puts the ball in the right place, he's a perfect fit for that offense. Right now, he's a top 5 quarterback in the NFL."
I also asked Ryan about who is the most fraudulent team in the NFL, Puka Nacua, and his favorite fan base he played for during his career. I also asked him if he and Jared Goff are on good terms after Goff called him out for his criticism of the quarterback last Thursday night.
You can watch the full interview below!
Fitzpatrick is partnered with Little Caesars and is promoting the Little Caesars Bye Week campaign.